The Indentured Heart

A Historical Romance

To Roxanne for her unwavering support through the years and for loving this story.

And to Jewelann Butler, author of Selena's Seduction and Tangled Passions, for giving me the title The Indentured heart.

CHAPTER ONE

Spring 1770

Almost too late, Royce Devlin saw the thread-like creature wriggling through the dark liquid in the ladle he lifted toward his lips. With a curse, he flung the inky water onto the deck of the gunship turned merchantman.

Foul! All fouled! First spiders' nest-infested biscuits and he'd stopped eating, now water he could no longer drink.

He stormed past the ventilation gratings in the main deck and vaulted up the ladder onto the forecastle of the pendulous Elizabethan-style vessel. Gripping the railing above the bowsprit that jutted like a finger pointing accusation at the land, he growled his outrage.

"Damn my ill fate! Damn the London court that decreed me guilty! And damn the judge who condemned me into indentureship!"

Eleven years he'd worked his way from cabin boy to first mate. Five more years he'd captained the vessel he'd earned with his own sweat and blood. By end of shipping season last, he'd have had all he needed to buy himself an English estate and attract a quality wife to bear him sons. He'd have proven his success. Then, with one shortsighted edict, the cumbersome English judicial system had stripped him of his property and banished him to his own personal hell.

Paint flaked from the railing beneath the clench of Royce's hands as he faced his immediate future, the God-awful Americas. Half of his life he had labored to escape these coastal waters. Now he was back as penniless as the day he'd first run from them.

The cabin door below the quarterdeck banged open and twittering laughter rang out across the decks. Though Royce had provided the foppish captain a gentleman's company during the duller hours asea, he'd found nothing in the man to respect. Not because the fop had been easily persuaded to gamble with a man who had nothing to bet save his labor against the control of accepting or rejecting offers on his indentureship. Not because the captain liked his drink strong and often. Royce added Captain Smythe to the list of those he damned, because Smythe ill fed his human cargo and refused to freshen their drinking water even after two weeks moored in the Maryland harbor.

Royce eyed the indentured souls languishing on the lower deck. He'd brought them what extras he could off of Smythe's table once the captain was in his cups. Now, watching them, he wondered if he'd only prolonged their misery. They were ill and had been passed over because of it.

Meanwhile, he was healthy and had rejected many a respectable offer. Maybe the free choice he'd won off of Captain Smythe hadn't turned out to be such a privilege after all.

On the lower deck, the captain pressed a hankie to his nostrils as he led his guest past the ripening human cargo. Royce flared his nostrils, inhaling the stench of human refuse rising from the head beneath the bowsprit. The lordly classes hadn't had to reduce him to merchandise for him to learn the common man's reality. Long before the sea offered him an avenue to success, Royce Devlin had known the foulness of bondage.

"Blast me if I'll do the full fourteen year sentence."

He slapped the palms of his hands against the rail above the bowsprit, spun, and paced the forecastle like a caged tiger. Worrying about a handful of unfortunates who hadn't the constitution to see them through life's trials wasn't helping him gain his freedom. He needed off this ship, and he needed a position that would keep him close to the coast. It was his only means of escape. Unless...

Royce paused and lifted his face toward the mouth of the Severn River where it drained into the Chesapeake. A letter would free him. One letter.

"No!" The word tore from deep inside of him like a curse, and he balled his hands into fists at his sides. "No letter. By all that is holy, I swore my independence from her. There are other ways to make myself once again a free man. My own man!"

"Sink me," crowed an urbane, male voice from the lower deck where Royce had last seen the Cockney girl, Sarah. "What's a nubile creature like you doing on a vessel such as this?"

With lethal calm, Royce turned toward the rail separating the forecastle from the lower, open deck. Through the windblown strands of her chocolate brown hair, Sarah puckered back at the stranger beside Captain Smythe. "Waitin' on a man the likes of you no doubt, guv'nor."

Royce scowled at the man paused in front of the girl whose head he'd scrubbed free of lice just the day before. He didn't need the dandy's fine linen breeches nor waistcoat of the most fashionable length to recognize him as the sort who would take undue advantage of a common girl. To recognize him as the same sort who'd charge a man and cost him his hard-earned freedom.

Royce took one measured step away from the seaward rail, his gaze riveted to the dandy leering down the front of Sarah's loose-fitting bodice. Men like that used girls like Sarah then cast them aside when done with them. Men like the one salivating over the womanly assets of an overeager girl considered themselves to be above the law.

Men like him controlled the dais of bewigged judges that had decreed Royce guilty and sentenced him to virtual slavery. The colonies were not without their class system, not as long as there were gentleman planters who emulated England's aristocracy. Royce knew. He'd grown up among their likes.

"I'd make you a good parlor maid, guv'nor, that I would."

"But I've need only of an upstairs maid," purred the planter silkily.

"I've tucked in me share of bed linens," she cooed back.

In one, long stride, Royce brought himself to the rail behind Sarah. He caught the planter's eye, held it with his own unrelenting gaze.

What worse could your system do to me should I find it necessary to lay a hand upon you, Planter?

The dandy stiffened back as though Royce's thought had been etched in his glare, and the man sputtered in the captain's direction, "It seems you've nothing here I can use."

The planter hurried to the side of the ship where his launch was moored. Captain Smythe started after him. The dandy skidded a leg over the rail of the lower deck, waved off Smythe, and dropped out of sight. Sarah threw herself against the rail and cried out, "I'd clean your bedchambers good, I would."

The thump of an oar against the merchantman's wooden hull echoed up off the water. Sarah's voice trailed, "Dustin's dustin'...upstairs or down."

Captain Smythe wheeled about, pursed his thin lips, and jabbed a stubby finger at Royce. "Soul drivers are gonna get you along with the whole sorry lot. And they'll drive you so far inland, Devlin, you'll never again breathe salt air."

Smythe's words didn't threaten. They promised. Royce had crisscrossed too many seas not to recognize when a captain, even one more merchant than seafarer, had grown tired of being anchored in one place.

As the rotund captain disappeared below decks, a shout rang up from the departing launch. "Watch as you go, boy."

A stunted form capped by a sweat-stained hat grabbed the sides of the dory in which he rode as it bobbed wildly in the launch's wake. No seaman, that one, Royce judged.

No boy either, judging by the brackish stream of tobacco juice he spat after the launch and the quality of his curse. "The bloody pox on ya."

The dory smacked into the side of the merchantman below where Sarah stood. She skittered back, to the far side of the open deck. The new arrival dropped over the rail like a shadow. His piggy eyes scanned the open decks.

"Motley bunch," he grumbled to no one in particular. "Told her would be too late. Told her they'd be picked over. Buy slaves, I tell her. No need breakin' no sweat rowin' from ship to ship to look over slaves. They bring them to shore. Black as midnight and simple as sin, can't lose 'em in a crowd. Not like bloody English indentureds what blend in like fleas on a dog."

The hair at the nape of Royce's neck bristled. "Overseer." The word hissed like an oath from his lips. "No better than gaolers. No better than a lying gentleman."

The overseer kicked the foot of an indentured man dozing with his back to the bulwark. The man barely stirred. Curling a lip, the overseer moved on. Halfway along the deck, he hesitated before another squatted with his back to the main mast. He toed the man in the ribs. The man toppled onto his side, his hat popping from his head, exposing open staring eyes.

Royce winced. A woman screamed. A child wailed. The overseer cackled. "Looks to be ya lost another of ya."

Then he scanned the haunted faces worrying over the dead man upon the deck and snorted. "Which of ya's gonna be next, eh?"

"Shut up," bawled a scrawny lad, lunging for the visitor.

Easily, the overseer backhanded the boy aside.

A taller, broader lad balled his fists in front of his face. "You won't put me to the deck so easy, ya little runt!"

The overseer wheeled about. "What'd you call me, boy?"

The youth dropped his fists a bit, cocked his chin, and taunted, "Runt. Runt. Runty little man."

Snickers waffled through the crowd. Royce studied the lad. He had meat on his bones in spite of the ocean crossing, in spite of a bout of the flux. He was also a good head taller than the overseer. He had a chance in a fair fight.

Without raising his fists, the overseer came at the boy. The boy swung. The overseer ducked. Quicker than Royce could shout warning, a metal blade glinted in the man's hand, and he jabbed its thick handle into the boy's belly, doubling the lad over. Turning toward the crowd, the overseer waved the long blade. "Who's next?"

No one answered.

The overseer crowed. "Now which of ya sorry lot am I gonna save from this rotting tub? Which of ya whites what come sellin' yerselves like slaves does Jubal Toombs save today?"

Uneasily the people pressed back against the rail. Toombs strutted before them, his eyes roving, theirs glancing away. He stopped in front of Sarah. His evil gaze flicked from her bosom to her face, as he growled menacingly, "Be it you, sweet thing?"

She shrank from his reaching hand. Toombs caught her by the upper arm and jerked her close. "Yer in no position ta be actin' so high-and-mighty, girly."

"Unhand her," growled Royce.

The overseer started, his grip loosening. Sarah bolted for the higher deck where Royce stood. Craning his neck in Royce's direction, the wretch flipped one corner of his coat aside, displaying the menace of his over-sized knife like a small, cornered cur baring his fangs. "Be you a mate on this tub?"

"What business is it of yours to ask?" Royce demanded, though he already knew why the overseer visited a ship with a cargo of indentured souls.

"'Tis the business of one come to buy."

Sarah clutched Royce's arm. "You can't let him take me!"

"I've no say in the matter, Sarah."

Toombs spread his stubby hands in the air, his thin lips slanting wryly. "Surely yer no part of this cargo?"

Royce didn't answer.

Toombs howled. "Now, how'd a fine gentleman the likes of you get himself indentured?"

Royce remained silent. The laughter died on Toombs' tongue. His glittery gaze shifted from Royce to the clinging Sarah. "She ain't yours."

"I am," Sarah half sobbed, gripping Royce's arm tighter.

Toombs snorted. "You two, a couple?"

"We are," she sputtered. In a lowered voice for Royce's ears, she pleaded, "If 'e thinks I'm alone, Royce, 'e'll buy up me papers. I know 'e will. Please Royce."

Toombs nodded toward shore. "A mate off this ship takin' his leave at the White Horse Inn told me all that's left of this vessel's cargo is singles but for one couple. You sayin' yer the one bound set?"

Royce glanced at the dead man on the main deck in the arms of his weeping widow. Sarah's fingers tightened around Royce's forearm. "Please, Royce."

He shouldn't have scared off her planter. That one would have used her but likely not have abused her. Figuring he owed Sarah, Royce nodded.

Toombs grumbled and slunk off toward the quarterdeck below which were the officers' quarters. If Toombs called up the captain, he'd learn he and Sarah were no couple.

Toombs pounded on the wall of the companionway. Smythe's head and shoulders emerged from the stairwell, the white hankie fluttering beneath his nostrils. Toombs gestured toward the forecastle as he spoke. Smythe glared at Royce when he answered, leaving no doubt that the truth was out.

Sarah's fingers dug into Royce's forearm. She too understood that their lie had failed to save her.

Then, with a final sneer in their direction, Toombs lumbered across the main deck to the rope ladder, climbed over the rail, and dropped out of sight. Sarah let go of Royce and dashed to the port-facing side of the forecastle. "Cap'n Smythe had to have told 'im I was a single. Do you think he refused to sell me papers to so hateful a man, do you Royce?"

Royce joined her at the rail. "I doubt Captain Smythe has that generous a spirit." Not with the soul drivers circling closer daily with their meager lot prices.

For the first time, Royce considered the possibility that Toombs had been looking for a couple, that his and Sarah's charade had invited the very attention they'd meant to avoid. The hair at the nape of Royce's neck prickled as he watched Toombs row away from the merchantman.

***

Megan McCall drummed her fingertips against the edge of the carriage seat. She'd caught scarcely a glimpse of Toombs since he'd climbed aboard the merchantman. And she didn't trust the man any further than she could see him. Damnation. If she hadn't made her own inquiries at the White Horse Inn about available indentureships, Toombs would have had her already packed aboard Peyton's schooner awaiting a proper wind to blow them out of the harbor.

Nor should she have sent Toombs about the shipyards on his own these past days. She should have hired a boy to go about with him. A youth she could have intimidated into truth telling. Then she'd have known if Toombs did his job properly or not.

"Penny wise and pound foolish," she muttered. "And weary of arguing with slackers."

A salty breeze rattled the sleek phaeton and slipped beneath its black hood. Megan lifted her face into the mist and her impatient fingers stilled against the seat cushion. Before her, the topgallant of the merchantman's main mast bobbed against a backdrop of blue sky and spotty, white clouds. In her ears echoed the slap of waves against wooden hull.

Megan inhaled the briny air and, for an instant, Toombs and every other worry plaguing her scattered with the wind. For an instant, she felt the weight of her father's arm once more around her shoulders. She heard his sandpapery voice name the parts of a ship for her as he had since before she could walk.

She even felt the sway of a deck beneath her feet.

Then the dappled gray harnessed to the phaeton stomped and the buggy shook, reminding Megan where she was and why. Anger flared through her. The pleasures of a ship's deck were hers to enjoy no more, not since the sea had taken her father from her.

Not since a man of impeccable lineage had taken everything else.

"By the blood of God, I swear I'll be free of dependence on any man by summer's end."

A small boat slipping from the shadow of the merchantman snagged her attention. Fitting a spyglass to her eye, Megan focused on the approaching dory. Toombs was alone.

Curse that man his dilly-dallying. Given all his complaint about rowing out to the ships, given all the excuses he'd delivered to her instead of an indentured couple, she should have seen sooner that Toombs wasted her time. But she was tired. She was tired of maneuvering her buggy between her cheap waterfront room and the tightfisted Maryland banks. She was tired of depending on an unreliable overseer and overworked maid.

She was tired of her own limitations.

Lowering the spyglass in one hand, Megan smacked the seat cushion beside her hip with the other. The gray horse whinnied.

"Easy, girl. 'Tis myself I'm lashing out at."

The gray shook her head, rattling the harnessing.

"And Toombs," she muttered. "Curse myself for accepting even one of his excuses. Curse him and his tales of indentured contracts already bought up, of sickly or pricey pairs, or of couples who come with a brood of children."

The filly chewed at the bit in her mouth.

"'Tis naught but complaint you hear from me these days, hey my Gray Girl?"

The filly nickered softly.

"Our circumstances will improve. They must!"

Megan refitted the spyglass to her eye and sighted on the couple she'd spotted earlier at the forecastle rail. Toombs couldn't call either of them frail, though the woman was nearly as pale as the man was hale; and her clothes did hang a bit on her frame.

Megan sighed. "Sea crossings do take their toll."

As for dispelling Toombs' brood of children excuse, the wife looked to be well shy of twenty. The two of them couldn't have begot too many offspring yet. How much could a few small children eat anyway?

Perhaps the noise of little ones about Hillhouse would be good for the spirit of the old place. Certainly her own mood could use some lifting.

The breeze caught the loose folds of the man's white shirt, blousing the fabric like a sail from his broad shoulders to his lean waist. Any sons he sired would be strapping, able-bodied lads in a few years. And attract every craftsman's daughter up and down the Chesapeake, if they likewise inherited the thick, auburn hair ruffling about their father's shoulders.

And if they favored the mother? They'd best hope to have gained at least the benefit of their father's straight, Anglican nose. Or did she detect a French influence in the profile he lifted toward the mouth of the bay? By any measure, the wife was not the husband's match.

But in what way? Maturity? There was an apparent age difference.

Many a man married a younger woman, especially if he lived a hard enough life to wear out more than one wife. Not that the man with the auburn hair whipping back from his high, burnished brow showed any sign of hard living. Though the lean muscles detailed by a white shirt plastered against arms and chest by a fickle wind suggested the man was no stranger to physical labor.

Maybe what didn't match-up were their postures. Her shoulders had a common slouch to them. His were square. She sprawled her elbows along the rail and propped her face between her hands, oblivious to how much her immodest bodice exposed. He stood straight. Already, her young body slumped with resignation while his was stiff with an inbred indignation.

Differing economic backgrounds, then, she decided. "No difference now that they've been reduced to the desperate state of indentureship together."

Still, the disparities between the man and woman nagged Megan. They couldn't have been together long. The cut of their clothes didn't match. Her chemise was of a simple, working-class style and made of inexpensive cloth. His seen-better-days, tan breeches embraced muscled thighs as though they'd been tailor made to fit.

"No padding beneath his patched stockings, I'd wager," she murmured wistfully. "I could have well used a man like him."

The slab ladder nailed to the piling near where Megan had parked her buggy creaked. The filly stomped and blew. The rank odor of old sweat curled through Megan's nostrils. Lowering the glass into the black folds of her skirt, she watched Toombs haul himself up onto the wharf.

"Ain't none worth the havin' on that one either, mum," he reported as he righted himself before her.

"What of that pair on the forecastle deck, Mr. Toombs?"

"They ain't for you."

"Has their contract been bought up?"

"No."

"Have they a brood of children I can ill afford to feed?"

"No, but -- "

"Let me guess. They're a pricey pair."

"He'd be a costly one, him bein' a long timer out of Newgate Prison. Fourteen years his sentence."

"Convicts come cheap," she snapped. "It's one of the reasons I've brought us here, Mr. Toombs. Maryland still allows convict indentureships into the colonies."

"But -- "

"Was his a violent crime?"

Toombs' lips twisted, their corners twisting with mean pleasure. Too weary to listen to any nasty tale Toombs would delight in telling, Megan warned, "And don't lie to me this time, Toombs. I'll stay in Maryland for as many days as it takes to find a couple with strong backs. Don't think I won't pass up the free passage of Mr. Lyttle's vessel."

She leaned from the waist toward Toombs. "I can always save myself a coin or two by not buying you passage home."

The sneer faded from Toombs' mouth and he grumbled.

Megan straightened. "Be assured, I will drive you to meet each newly arrived ship myself and wait as I have this morning to make sure you do indeed visit them. So, I ask you again, Mr. Toombs. Was his a violent crime?"

"None that they tell me, mum."

"Fine then," she leveled, ignoring Toombs' contemptuous glare and raising her arm and pointing. "I'll have them!"

***

"Ooooh lawdy," chirped Sarah. "Loo' at that fine buggy. Must be from one o' them grand plantations. Big as castles, I 'ear they are and the servant's livin' grand as the masters. Gor, to have me papers bought up by someone the likes of that."

Royce sighted off the tilt of Sarah's chin. The light carriage was black and hooded, like those physicians drove...or ladies. Beside the phaeton stood Jubal Toombs.

Royce grimaced. As usual, Sarah saw only what she wanted to see. While he saw the raw reality of a black-sleeved arm lifting from beneath the black hood of the phaeton and pointing them out. Royce shivered.

Instinct warned him against accepting the employment of the person who belonged to that arm. There may yet be time for another offer.

Then he caught sight of two familiar men plodding the planks, they too pointing out the merchantman. They'd been aboard a week ago, looking to buy. But individual indentures were still selling well, the captain not yet ready to unload the lot of his human cargo at soul drivers' prices.

But that had been then. The remaining indentureds had since grown more ill with their weariness and the captain restless for a fresh cargo. Royce drew a long breath. Time to be choosy had just run out.

CHAPTER TWO

"Loo' at it," Sarah squealed as Royce handed her up from the flatboat onto the small dock. "Ain't it grand?"

It was his worst nightmare. Beyond the close cropped sprawling lawn, two stories of red brick climbed to a slate-gray shingled roof studded with dormers. Its oversized entrance was flanked by polygonal Corinthian columns and a row of aging tulip trees shaded her like dutiful slaves. It was a plantation house facing the river as those built in the days of bad land roads and good water travel were.

Under his breath Royce damned, "Old plantation. Inherited money."

His empty stomach churned and bile rose into his throat. When Jubal Toombs had packed them from the merchantman into the hold of a West Indies trader, Royce hadn't been fool enough to believe the Caribbean his destination. His luck hadn't turned that far to the good yet. Besides, the phaeton from which a slim, black-sleeved arm had pointed him and Sarah out and altered their destinies had been too temporarily adhered to the open deck to suggest a long trip.

But, loaded onto a flatboat in a Virginia port and poled upriver, inland, Royce had thought his state of ownership couldn't get any worse. Now, staring at the sunlight splintered through treetops across the landscape like cell bars, he realized how badly he'd underestimated his circumstances.

"This way," growled Toombs, trudging off toward the house where a black man in servant livery stood in the gaping entryway.

They followed the butler into the house and down a wide hallway that narrowed past a broad stairway toward a less ostentatious rear entry. Royce focused on the back door, on its high-set window that let in a half-moon promise of sky.

As cargo aboard the merchantman, he'd moved about above decks at will. He'd even slept beneath the stars, relishing his freedom to the fullest after months in a prison cell.

Or rather, he'd lulled himself into a false sense of freedom aboard the ship. They stopped short of the exit with the window arcing like a setting sun, short of escape. The wedge of sky dimmed in the failing light, and the wainscoted walls of the hallway closed on Royce as sure as they were the cold, damp stones of Newgate Prison.

***

Megan McCall looked up from the papers in her lap at the man lounging in the wingback chair opposite her. He was rolling the stem of a tulip glass idly between his forefinger and thumb, broodingly watching the red Port wine swirl within its confines. He preferred Madeira. He'd declared the amber vintage the wine of a true Englishman often enough for Megan to know. But colonial Port was the best her budget would allow these days.

"It's fortunate for me that you returned from London when you did, Peyton," she said. "The Annapolis banks were as tightfisted in dealing with a woman as have been all other Tidewater loan institutions."

Megan's guest looked up at her, his copious lips curling into a smile. "And I'm delighted to find you well enough to traipse from one end of the Tidewater to the other."

"Do I hear censure in your tone?"

"What you hear, m'dear, is concern. After all, we did nearly lose you last summer." He quirked his dark eyebrows up onto his high, powdered brow, a winsome expression that sent many a woman far junior to his forty years swooning.

"A lot you cared," she countered, forcing a light note into her voice in spite of her weariness. "You jaunted off to England and didn't give me another thought."

Peyton Lyttle's manicured eyebrows gathered over the crest of his properly English nose and his full lips puckered to a pout. "Not a day passed that I didn't give thought to you, m'dear. But I couldn't bear staying here and watching you linger as you did."

But, if you'd stayed, you could have helped me.

Megan shoved the thought aside. Peyton had been too frequent a visitor to Hillhouse since long before she came into the world, too good a friend to her mother not to forgive him this one failing. Besides, the Lyttles and the Hills, her mother's kin, had been loyal neighbors since Megan's grandfather and Peyton's father had been lads together. She returned to the papers she'd been reading.

Peyton sniffed. "You'll find all in order, m'dear."

"I'm sure I will," she murmured. "It's just that father always said my faith in a person's word would be my downfall. So, I'm trying to be more diligent about reading what I sign. No aspersions intended against your person, Peyton. I value your friendship every bit as much as Mother did."

She gave her guest a sedate smile. "I do appreciate your allowing me to impose upon that friendship for a loan."

A light rapping at the library door drew Megan's attention from Peyton's cooling smile, and she called out, "Enter."

The door opened on the hand of a simply uniformed, gray headed servant. He hobbled a few steps into the room on arthritically bowed legs, umber eyes peering warmly from amidst crinkled, coffee dark flesh. In an equally tender voice, he crooned, "They's here, Miz Megan."

She glanced in Peyton's direction. "We are through here but for the signing, aren't we?"

He smiled and dipped his chin.

"Show them in, Jep," she directed as she spread the numerous legal documents to be signed over the tea table in front of her.

The butler stepped back into the hall and motioned them through the doorway. Royce crossed the threshold into a room like so many he had visited in his lifetime. But, this time, sound muffled and echoed back at him like he'd just walked into a stone cell rather that a plantation house library.

He stopped short. If he'd had pen and paper at hand, he'd have written the necessary letter to the one person from whom he'd sworn never to beg help.

But he had neither implement.

Toombs nudged him forward. He stumbled away from the doorway toward the bookshelf-lined wall nearest the hall door and faced his immediate future. Focusing on the thick-legged, mahogany writing table in front of a trio of windows in the adjoining wall, he forced himself to breathe more slowly. That sturdy piece of furniture was a man's choice. Perhaps he'd been mistaken about the size of the arm extended from beneath the phaeton hood. Autocratic judges aside, he could deal with another man, even one born a planter.

He caught the glint of brass atop the broad table. Was that a sextant weighting the papers there?

Hope charged through Royce's veins. Had he the good fortune, after all, to have his papers bought up by a man whose interests included the sea?

With renewed hope, he scanned the room. There, upon the mantelpiece of the marble-faced fireplace in the opposite wall perched the model of a fine schooner. Upon the darkly wainscoted wall butted between hallway entrance and butler's pantry door hung a painting of a single-masted, square-rigger rising on the swells of a high sea. And that was definitely a volume of Practical Seamanship on the shelf at his elbow.

If he'd actually stumbled into the employ of another seaman, he could make his new employer realize his value. He'd be piloting one of the man's ships in short time.

Hell and damnation, I'll swab decks if it'll get me off a God-rotting plantation.

He scanned the pair of wingback chairs in front of the marble fireplace and the settee they faced, searching for his new employer. The far chair was empty, the near one angled so that he couldn't see beyond its high back.

A movement amidst the settee's roiling blue and off-white vine pattern caught his eye. He didn't immediately recognize the black cloth as the spread skirt of a woman's gown. He didn't even realize a human being moved the loosely fitted fabric until the wearer straightened back from the tea table and held a sheet of paper toward the nearer of the two high-backed chairs.

But Royce recognized that black sleeved arm right off. He hadn't mistaken the gender of that appendage after all.

The hope careening through his veins faltered. The greatest failure of his life had been his attempt at convincing one particular woman of his true worth.

Quickly, Royce re-evaluated his situation, evaluated the woman before him in widow's weeds. The face turning his way was delicately pale, as though guarded a lifetime from sunlight by shaded gardens, hooded carriages, and frilly parasols.

Plantation bred and born.

He scowled.

But she was young, maybe too young to have yet learned anything more than histrionics or seduction. Nothing more was required of plantation daughters than for them to attract advantageous husbands into the family. Plantation sons, on the other hand, were expected to build dynasties. He knew.

Sons were plantation schooled. The hinges of Royce's jaw clenched.

But he reined in the rancor that subject always evoked in him. He needed a cool head about him if he was going to read how best to handle a diminutive female with lips ripe to the point of bursting. How easily such a mouth could be plucked.

Royce shook off the notion. This was no time for the nether regions of his body to take charge, either.

Though, a sympathetic shoulder offered to a beautiful, young woman to cry upon had its advantages. She'd be in his arms before she knew whose fingers sliced the pins from her lace cap and pulled her closely tucked, raven tresses down about her cheeks. Not that he'd ever used any female for gain before. He'd made it a practice to avoid the husband hunters, leave the innocent or naive intact, and to refuse the desperate.

But, he had never been as desperate himself as he was at this moment. And the widow, dwarfed to the point of frailty by her volumes of black gown and lost against the roiling vine print of the settee, would be no match for a desperate man.

Not that she'd find his use of her disagreeable. He'd traveled too far and learned too much about the secrets of a woman's body to disappoint any. The tiny hands this woman now folded primly together among the dark gathers of her skirt would rake his bare back, urging him between her spread legs. But, could he trade the last piece of himself that he had left with which to barter for freedom? Could he trade away his honor?

Sooty lashes lifted from a pair of eyes the hue of a fathomless sea. She met his gaze and something shifted in those endless depths. A vulnerability deep in the cobalt- rimmed pupils suggested she was as desperate as he.

Then, whatever he'd glimpsed vanished. The thick lashes lowered, and even the eyes were shuttered to him.

Maybe he had seen no more than a reflection of his own despair in the eyes an enigmatic blue hue. Maybe it had been his own urgency, his own spent dignity staring back at him from the haunted depths of the sea-blue eyes. Indeed, if he traded away his honor, he'd lose the only true freedom a man had.

No tricks. He'd argue, cajole, even badger his way through the woman's emotional reasoning if he must. Though, the possibility remained, she may have chosen him for his sea experience. Toombs had demonstrated a decided lack of comfort with water during their transporting.

But, the widow of a seaman, which she must be given the decor of the library, likely had a shipping business that needed someone of skill running it. She had to have bought his papers because of the skills listed among them. Royce's hope swelled.

Then a man rose from beyond the stuffed wing of the nearest high backed chair, and every muscle in Royce's body went rigid. Carelessly, the other man flicked blotting powder from the paper the woman had handed him. Master of his domain. This planter was not just of the class Royce had grown to hate. He was the man he hated. He was the man whose wealth of money, power, and eloquence had condemned Royce into servitude.

Was this some kind of cruel joke? Had he been bought by Peyton Lyttle?

Only shock kept Royce from lunging forward and tearing limb from limb the man touching his lips to the forehead of the woman in black. On some peripheral level where a fragment of reason yet functioned, Royce kept telling himself it was the woman who'd bought his indentureship. The woman, not the man. Not Lyttle.

"Until next time, m'dear," Lyttle murmured, tucking the paper she'd handed him into a satchel with a sheaf of others.

He's leaving. He's not part of this place.

The words circled Royce's skull like an incantation as the planter turned toward the entrance off the main hall, toward the butler, Sarah, Toombs, and Royce. Royce steeled himself for the moment Lyttle would recognize that the man he'd condemned to fourteen years in Newgate had followed him to the colonies. Their eyes would meet, and Lyttle would read Royce's message of hatred.

But Peyton Lyttle strolled past butler, overseer, and indentured pair with but a sniff and the most cursory of glances. Royce's fury turned to incredulity. How could the planter not have recognized him? He'd recognized him readily enough when putting the finger to him, when naming him as captain of a contraband laden vessel.

The door closed behind Peyton Lyttle and a strident, female voice jolted Royce back to the library, to the woman in black. "This is not a couple."

If not for the cobalt vortex of her eyes, Royce wouldn't have recognized the woman on the settee as the same frail female who'd been there before he'd looked away. This woman's narrow shoulders framed the black gown, animated it as she shook the contracts in her hands at Toombs.

"Explain yourself, Mr. Toombs."

Toombs shrugged. "I wouldn't be knowin' what be printed in them papers, bein' as nobody ever learned me ta read." His beady eyes gleamed insolently. "But the girl said they was. And him." Toombs jabbed a filthy thumb at Royce.

"But they are not a married couple," the mistress with a tongue quick as a whip retorted. "Not according to their papers."

Turning her stormy gaze on Royce, she leveled in a tight voice, "I won't have unwed servants sharing a bed under my roof."

"Please, mum," Sarah whimpered. "Don't send us back. We'll be wed."

"We will not," Royce sputtered, stepping forward.

The mistress of the house raised her lean chin toward him. "Here in the colonies, we do not liken to any man dallying with a girl's affections."

"As a gentleman," Royce gnashed through gritted teeth, "I guarantee that I don't dally such."

"She'll send us back, Royce," wailed Sarah. "What'll happen to me?"

Royce winced and conceded on the girl's behalf. "Might not your needs be as well tended by two unmarrieds, madam?"

Eyes as unreadable as a treacherous channel narrowed at him. Didn't she see that Sarah wasn't protesting his denial? The sooty lashes raised at Toombs. "I'm sure your version is that the captain of the merchantman took advantage of you."

"At the mercy of the educated and well off I am."

"User of anyone in possession of a coin is a more apt description of you. Get out of my sight, Toombs. I'll deal further with you later."

Toombs slunk off toward the hall door, his lips curled in a mean smile. Royce squared himself before the mistress of the manor and found her faintly heart-shaped face already tipped at him. Her wide-set, slightly angled, sea-blue eyes flicked from his scuffed shoes to the loose folds of his shirt. He resisted her intimidation and announced curtly, "I have many skills."

She looked up, the hue of her eyes darkening to the shade of an arctic sea. "Have I your word as a gentleman on that, too?"

The hair at the back of Royce's neck prickled. "Mine is a truer heart than most gentlemen you'll ever meet. You'll find my skills well documented in the papers already in your hands."

She pressed her shoulders against the back of the settee without sacrificing any of their authoritative angle. "But I have only one use of you, Mr. Devlin."

To the butler she ordered, "Fetch Jaisy."

To the indentured pair she flatly informed, "This is Hillhouse. You shall address me as Miss McCall."

Sarah bounced on the balls of her feet and snatched up Royce's hand. The butler re-emerged from a corner door next to the fireplace. A tall woman who moved like a cat, all sinewy and lean muscle, followed him. Her head was wrapped in a brightly colored cloth tied in place with an elaborate knot.

She strode past the new arrivals, her cat-slanted amber eyes flicking briefly in their direction. She halted in front of the mistress of Hillhouse and spoke in a low, smokey voice that hummed with the exotic lilt of some southerly island. "You send for me, Miss Megawn?"

"Take the girl. Clean her up and find her a room in the servant's wing."

Sarah squeezed Royce's hand. Their new mistress glanced at their joined hands as she said to the coffee-dark man in servant's livery, "See to his cleaning."

Royce stepped forward, stripping himself free of Sarah, and sputtered, "I am quite capable of cleaning myself, given the proper tools."

The lean chin beneath the budding mouth lifted at him. "So we shall see. Jep, show Mr. Devlin to the prepared room above mine."

"She's keepin' 'im in the main 'ouse?" Sarah snatched at Royce's sleeve, her smile gone.

Their new mistress gave the woman with honey hued skin a dour look. Jaisy snagged Sarah away from Royce and hustled her out the pantry door. The butler motioned for Royce to follow him.

"A moment, Jep."

Both men faced the mistress of Hillhouse. But she looked only at Royce.

"Mr. Devlin, move me to the chair behind the writing table."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'm not accustomed to having to repeat myself, Mr. Devlin," she returned icily. "I issue my orders once, and I'd advise you to get into the habit of listening carefully. What I said was, move me to my desk chair."

Royce glanced between the woman and the chair no more than half a dozen steps from where she sat. What game did she play with him? An exercise of power? A means to humble him? He'd escaped the last woman who'd made him jump through imaginary hoops for no good purpose but to exercise her control over him. Maybe he could justify using this female after all.

And what better way to begin than by scooping up the young widow with a flourish and holding her intimately to his chest. But he'd forgotten her diminutive size, how lost he'd thought her to be in the voluminous fabric of her gown.

She fairly flew through the air as he lifted her, her shoulder slamming against his chest. Caught in a moment of surprise, all authority fell from her features. In the diaphanous face paling blue as the veins flowing beneath its skin, Royce glimpsed a girl barely any more than Sarah's own eighteen years and every bit as frightened beneath her bluster.

One more aspect of his mistress Royce became aware of. Megan McCall's legs hung lifelessly over his arm. Even a desperate man could not stoop low enough to use a cripple.

"Save your pity for someone who wants it, Mr. Devlin," she shot, the stern facade slipping back into place. "My only desire, at the moment, is to be placed securely and gently in the chair behind the writing table."

He carried her across the room and set her down in the armchair between the windows and the table as though she was delicate as blown glass. She tossed aside the contracts she'd carried with her, her torpid gaze boring dully up into him. "Now, Mr. Devlin, you know what your duty in this house will be."

"I think you waste your money."

"That's not for you to determine, Mr. Devlin," she remarked. "Not as long as I hold your papers."

Megan waited until the door closed behind the servants before giving in to the tremors she'd kept at bay by sheer will. When she'd looked up and seen the man whose services she'd bought standing in her library, she'd been stunned. He was taller than she'd expected, more commanding. And he'd been staring at her.

At least his initial reaction hadn't been the one she loathed. That one he didn't give her until he lifted her and discovered how damaged she was.

"The saints save me from the pity of a man with the shoulders of Atlas," she muttered.

Why didn't he wear a jacket like a civilized man? All that white shirt draping off his wide shoulders had hurt her eyes as she'd watched him on the deck of the merchantman. That manly bearing and days of wearying travel, of fruitless haggling had distracted her from contracts and netted her nothing more than a pair of indentured servants who were no couple.

She should have made Toombs fetch their papers from the ship for her to read before she'd approved the purchase. She should have seen by the glint in Toombs' eyes that he was up to no good.

She shouldn't have given in to her fatigue.

At least she could trust Peyton to be fair with his contracts. Mother always had. Should she lose the parcel of Hillhouse land she'd jeopardized as collateral on Peyton's loan, she'd be able to regain it when things turned for the good. Peyton had assured her she could.

Too bad she couldn't as easily remedy the error of buying the services of two indentureds who weren't a couple. She'd counted on the bond of matrimony to keep the man focused on his commitments, particularly the legal one of indentureship.

Perhaps something could yet be arranged between the two. The girl had demonstrated an eagerness to marry. What was her name?

Megan edged aside the girl's papers from the man's. "Sarah. Yes, Sarah would like Mr. Devlin's muscled arms around her."

Maybe she already knew the feeling.

Megan scowled. Too bad Mr. Devlin wasn't as inclined toward matrimony.

"So much for safely married."

She pushed the indentured contracts aside and opened the ledger book in front of her. Taking up quill, she added the amount of Peyton's loan to a short list of credits. She sighed, redipped the pen, and added her latest expenditures to an already long column of debt. Things had better turn for the good soon.

A cramp twisted up her leg. Cursing, she dropped the quill, snatched up the wineglass Jepthah had discreetly set down within her easy reach, and drained it in one swallow. She refilled the tulip glass from the decanter he'd likewise moved from tea table to writing table, leaned back in the hard chair, and waited for the numbing relief of the liquor.

"Now that he's back, perhaps Peyton can persuade some of the stodgy, Tidewater gentry to part with a bit of their cash," she muttered in an attempt at distraction, gritting her teeth against the cramp coiling up her right calf. "That is if I live through the night what with housing an unmarried, unkempt convict upstairs of my own bedchamber."

Not that Mr. Devlin needed much more than a change of clothing and a fresh shave to make him presentable. For having been weeks aboard a ship and a former resident of a prison cell, he didn't smell too terribly offensive.

She sipped from the polished edge of the tulip glass, letting her drugged mind wander at will.

She'd need to keep Mr. Devlin close given his duties, she reasoned. Besides, Jaisy was near, just a few quick steps beyond her bedchamber door in her private sitting room where the maid had bedded ever since the accident.

"Jaisy needs the help," Megan murmured, the wine doing its job. "Can't keep dragging her around the countryside with me. Turn the bull work of hauling me about over to the brawny Royce Devlin."

Megan snorted. "But don't expect me to be gulled by your carnal looks, Mr. Devlin, nor your invoked gentleman's code. I learned my lesson about gentlemen's honor the hard way."

Rubbing at the ache in her leg, she wondered what this gentleman's crime was.

Alarmingly, the word that jumped out at her from his contract was pirateering. Curse Toombs and his endless lying. Not a violent crime, he'd said. Curse herself for not making the man ferry those indentured papers back and forth between her and the ship before she'd bought those two.

"And curse Royce Devlin his pirate's black heart. Gentleman, indeed."

CHAPTER THREE

Megan gripped the wood frame of the daybed as Jaisy pushed the slipper onto her foot. She'd survived the night with a black-hearted gentlemen pirate one flight up from her bedchamber. But then, every night was a battle of survival for Megan. Demons worse than a man threatened her night and day.

Jaisy straightened between Megan and the room's single window, the haze of false dawn shimmering around her bright turban. "You look like you have a halo," Megan murmured, already weary and the sun not even up yet.

"Beware dark angels," Jaisy crooned, handing Megan her morning cup of tea.

"Not you. You're my guardian angel."

"Always will be. I swear dat on your mama's grave."

"But, someday, you'll leave."

"Not for as long as you need me."

Therein lies the dilemma, thought Megan. Her troubles bound Jaisy to an impossible pledge. Her errors in judgement. Her mistakes. They made prisoners of everyone upon whom she depended.

Staring past Jaisy into the blank brightness of a dawn-lit window, Megan tonelessly ordered, "Fetch him."

Jaisy's feet pattered up the bare stairs outside Megan's bedchamber, and the dead white light at the window yellowed slightly. When had she last watched a sunrise?

Certainly not this past winter. Not in the last nine months.

Megan winced. Once upon a time, she'd raced her stallion across dew-soaked fields, the sea-salt heavy air stinging her cheeks. They'd charge up the high ground together, she and Cinnabar. On the highest piece of Hillhouse land, they'd pause. Cinnabar would stomp the ground, his hooves clacking against the stone surface. He'd snort smoky blasts of air from his nostrils.

Then, the first rays of golden dawn would broach the tree line and spill over them. Cinnabar's ruddy coat would turn to copper and her air-cooled skin would warm. She loved watching sunrises from up on the...bluff.

Had loved, she reminded herself.

Megan frowned and sipped at the hot, strong contents of the teacup. The brew was a poor substitute for the warmth of sunshine.

Jaisy burst into the room, breathless. "Miss Megawn, he not dere!"

Megan's spine stiffened from the back of the daybed. "Call out Jep and whoever else is still about," she ordered. "Look for him. Find him!"

Megan strained to hear Jaisy race down the stairs and through the halls of the lower floor. Listening wasn't enough. It never was enough.

She glared at the window through which she could see nothing more than the changing shades of dawn among motionless tree limbs. Maybe if she pushed herself up a bit more on the daybed, she could see something.

Cradling the cup and saucer in her lap, she braced her hands against the smooth scrolled frame of the daybed on either side of her hips and pushed. But, one palm slipped off the woodwork, sending her yowling to the floor.

She landed on her hand and hip. Muttering, Megan flexed her hand, testing its mobility. It seemed unscathed.

Which was more than could be said for her pride and her lap. She picked at the damp folds of her skirt and scowled at the teacup tottering to and fro, spewing its contents across the hardwood floor.

Muffled voices rose from below. Feet clumped and padded over the parquet of the Entry Hall. Doors opened and slammed shut, front and back. Then silence. Curling her fingers tightly into the palms of her hands, Megan beat her fists against her useless thighs.

Several minutes later, Jaisy's lilting, "He not at the task of running off, Miss Megawn," turned into a shriek upon the bedchamber's threshold. Jaisy bolted across the room and dropped to her knees beside her unseated mistress.

Megan waved a dismissing hand, grumbling, "If he wasn't running off, then what was he doing outside the house?"

"I was relishing standing on solid ground," answered a deep voice from the doorway. "It's been a long time."

For one fleeting heartbeat, Megan was reminded of her father's commanding presence. Not that any rogue of a pirate could replace Shea McCall. Not that she had even thought...

She glared at Royce Devlin, all shoulders and white, blousing shirt filling her doorway, and tartly retorted, "I know the feeling."

He stepped forward with long, purposeful strides that made Megan start in spite of herself. With the same singular minded movement, Royce Devlin squatted and put his face close to hers. "Too bad your backside isn't as unfamiliar with the floor."

Megan blanched. Royce scooped her up.

"What are you doing?" she all but shrieked.

"My job," he leveled, setting her upon the daybed. "This is my job, isn't it?"

Megan gaped at the man towering over her, hiding her shock behind a crisp tone. "Clean up this mess."

Royce resisted the urge to click his heels together and bow. Being rounded up from the riverbank and squired back into the house and up the stairs like some truant schoolboy by an enslaved lady's maid was more than enough reminder of his humble position.

Besides, he'd glimpsed uncertainty in his mistress' flaring pupils as he'd lifted her off the floor. He knew what it was to be at the mercy of others, the most memorable being a London judge, Newgate gaoler, and another autocratic woman.

He'd run from that female. Then, he'd had no other option left to him. Now, he hadn't even that one -- not legally.

And the Mistress of Hillhouse couldn't run either, literally. He shouldn't blame her for using her acid tongue. She had no other weapon.

He squatted over the spilled tea and mopped. The scent of strong spirits curled his nostrils. Slowly, Royce rose, eyeing his new mistress.

"Is the carriage ready and loaded?" she asked the maid, her words clear, her tone sharp.

"De buggy is at de back door. If it be loaded depends on how dat girl work. Slow to rise and full of complaint she is."

"You'll manage her," the mistress intoned without the least slurring. "I'll be wanting to leave right off."

"But your skirt," protested the maid.

"A little slop of tea is all."

"And your fast-breaking?"

She waved the fussing Jaisy off and lifted her black-sleeved arms at him. "I've papers to pick up in the library. Then you can carry me out to the carriage."

Royce tossed the sodden cloth onto the tea tray beside the cup and saucer. His mistress' eyes were clear, he noted as he bent close and slipped his arms beneath her. Perhaps he was mistaken about the odor of whiskey in her tea.

He straightened, her slight frame tipping easily against his chest. With an unexpected lack of propriety, she slid her fingers along the shoulder seam of his shirt.

"Your shirt is damp," she said, sounding surprised.

"I washed it out last night. It didn't completely dry."

"And you shaved."

"That is what the razor left in my room was for, no?"

"Put me down."

Her unarguable I'm not accustomed to issuing my orders twice of last evening still ringing inside his head, he obeyed without delay and braced himself for whatever verbal tirade she seemed bent on delivering. But she just lifted her chin toward Jaisy.

"Find a dry shirt for Mr. Devlin."

So, the mistress of Hillhouse has a heart after all.

"I can ill afford to have him catching a chill."

Make that, brains enough to protect her investment.

"De Captain's t'ings long packed away."

So he'd guessed right about the owner of the schooner model atop the library fireplace being a seaman, though the knowledge didn't change the facts of his own situation. Long packed away translated into never coming back.

"Then one of the master's," Megan McCall muttered.

The master? If there was a master, why'd he send a crippled chit of a girl cross-colony to purchase a pair of indentures? Why did he leave the discipline of the scurrilous Toombs to a frail of body woman? Why did the mere mention of him set the porcelain cup upon the tray the maid held rattling in its saucer?

"I burned dat man's t'ings and threw de ashes on his grave."

Grave. That explained why Megan McCall acted on her own, but not the maid's animosity. Nor the master's relation to the mistress of Hillhouse.

"Even the shirts in the bottom of my chest?" she asked.

His shirts in her chest? A late mate no doubt.

Jaisy dropped the tray on the dressing table, setting the teacup to rattling on its saucer. She plucked a bleached-linen shirt from a dresser drawer and chucked it at Royce.

The high quality linen slid over his examining fingers, too fine for a man of physical labor. But not too fine for a man of the plantation class. And the captain?

Another male relative, no doubt. Miss McCall, as she'd insisted she be addressed, was too young to have buried two husbands.

"Be quick about changing, Mr. Devlin," the mistress of the manor snapped. "We're running late."

He strode to the side of her canopied bed, tossed down the master's garment, and tugged his shirttails from his pants.

A distinctly female gasp sounded behind him. "What are you doing?"

As he gathered up the hem of his shirt, he pivoted toward Megan McCall. "Changing shirts as you ordered."

"Here? Now?"

"Surely you've seen a man's bare back before."

Her eyes widened.

"You were married, weren't you?"

"Yes, but -- "

"And you are in a hurry, correct?"

"Yes, but -- "

He yanked his shirt over his head, cutting her off once more. But, when the shirt cleared his head, his mistress' stormy eyes were fixed on his naked chest. He might have dismissed her prolonged look as no more than a master's appraisal of the beast just purchased had not the pink tip of Megan McCall's tongue darted out and moistened her parted lips. So maybe she had planted more than her share of men.

He flung his shirt down with such force, it missed the foot of the bed and set the cradle beyond in motion. A cradle? That was an odd piece of furniture for a widow to keep in her bedchamber. Unless the master she mourned was recently enough departed that he'd left an heir brooding in his wife's belly.

Though, she'd been most light when he'd lifted her. He'd felt her bones even through the layers of her petticoats. He eyed her closely. Beneath the stroke of her hand, the mourning gown contoured a flat belly.

And the eyes that had gazed at his physique now stared at the tiny, spindled bed tipping to and fro beneath the lopsided drape of his shirt, a sheen of moisture turning them liquid. There was pain in those eyes, a pain that bunched her sable eyebrows over the bridge of her slim nose and flattened her pouty lips. With sad certainty, he knew no babe would fill that cradle this season, if any.

His fingers closed on the linen shirt, gathering it off the bed. Perhaps she mourned more than a husband.

He threaded the shirt over his head and caught her staring once again at his bare flanks. He shook the garment down over his shoulders. She glanced up into his face, then tipped her chin toward the maid.

"Have some biscuits packed on the side for Mr. Devlin's breakfast."

Royce grunted and muttered under his breath, "Can't have the investment starve to death either."

"Have you a jacket?" she asked him.

"No." He didn't bother to explain how he'd given it to an ailing man who hadn't the benefit of any warming invitations to the captain's cabin.

"The shirt barely fits him," she complained as he wrestled it down his torso. "No jacket will. Air out one of the Captain's for tomorrow."

Raising her arms again, she spouted almost congenially, "Shall we be off, Mr. Devlin?"

But, when he deposited her in the phaeton, she scowled at the floorboards. "The stew for the crew isn't here."

She nodded at a door centered in the low wing reaching toward the stables. "Go hurry that girl along."

As he neared the kitchen entrance, Sarah's voice wailed through the open door. "I'm hurryin' fast as I can. Woulda been done if'n I'd had m'self some 'elp at kneadin' them beaten biscuits. Gor, me arms is achin' an' not a lick o' 'elp off'n that Ester girl. Ordered me about and saved the light jobs fer 'erself, she did. She's the lazy one I tells ya."

On the far side of a mammoth worktable, a honey hued girl built lean like Jaisy tipped a pan full of golden biscuits into a cloth lined basket. She beseeched Jaisy with baleful eyes.

Royce stepped into the room and Sarah's pout curled into a coy smile and she cooed, "Mornin', Royce."

"You keep Miss Megawn waiting," Jaisy snapped. "Get de stew pot."

Sarah rolled her eyes at Royce and sashayed over to one of the smaller fire pits in the massive fireplace filling the end wall, its main pit large enough to accommodate an entire spitted steer. She bent over a soot blackened pot and grinned back at him.

"And you, Mr. Devlawn, will not cause dat girl to dally."

He opened his mouth, to protest, but Jaisy turned from him to the girl packing the biscuits. "Bundle two of dem on de side for Mr. Devlawn's breakfast."

"Yes, mama," answered the girl with her mother's coloring and build but eyes a darker, softer shade of brown.

"And you, girl..." Jaisy wheeled at Sarah and planted her hands on her hips. "...Get dat pot out to the carriage."

"Gor but it's too 'eavy fo' me alone," Sarah puckered.

Padding the metal handle with a rolled towel, Royce hoisted the pot. Sarah beamed up at him. He gave her a wan smile and headed out the door. Sarah scampered after him, the biscuit basket that had been in Ester's care now in Sarah's hands.

"Them biscuits is packed brim full o' bacon chunks." she chirped. "Mighty fine tastin', they is."

"Sounds like you already broke your fast."

Sarah giggled and peeked conspiratorially up at him. "I 'ad m'self a bite from the first batch when that bossy Ester weren't lookin'."

Royce swung the pot up over the phaeton's fender. Sarah's eyes followed the movement. She blanched and backed a step from the carriage, all flirtation falling from lashes and lips.

"Mor-mornin' mum," she stammered. "I didn't see you right off. Excuse me, mum." Sarah bobbing a quick curtsy, shoved the basket into Royce's hands, and fled.

Royce chuckled. "I think she's afraid of you."

"And you, Mr. Devlin, you aren't?"

He looked up into his mistress' steady, blue gaze. "Should I be?"

She leaned forward, bringing her pale face out of the shadow of the phaeton hood. "I hold in my hands the course of your life for the next fourteen years."

Royce's blood ran cold through his veins, but he resisted the resulting shiver. He climbed onto the seat beside the woman who practiced the art of menace almost as well as another woman who'd tried to control him.

Megan glanced from the powerful hands gathering up the reins to the tight lips drawing back as Royce Devlin clucked the horse into motion. She hadn't expected an independent minded man. She'd wanted one accustomed to using his strong back for common labor and already adapted to the demands of a woman. At least she'd hoped a married man would be gentled enough to obey without threat of force. More so, she'd counted on the bonds of responsibility to keep him in line.

But Royce Devlin wasn't married. And he filled the borrowed shirt far too carnally for the sensitivities of any innocent maiden. All that sun-bronzed flesh beneath a veil of close-fitting linen could lead a woman with less on her mind to low thoughts. Good thing she was neither maiden nor innocent.

Too bad he was a man of pride.

"Where are we going?" he asked, his voice almost as tight as his drawn lips.

"Just keep to the main road."

White-knuckled, he guided them past an overgrown lane that angled off between the house and stables. He steered her little gray harness horse along the well-worn loop of dirt past the first pasture. He brooded.

She could tell him the road looping from Hillhouse lead to town. She should. But she was in no mood for idle conversation with a pirate, no matter how gentlemanly he acted.

The shriek of a horse brought her indentured man's head up. Any other morning with Jaisy seated beside her, Megan would have leaned forward and watched Cinnabar charge the split-rail fence. She'd have gloried in his spirited splendor as he raced ahead of the buggy as far as the fenced pasture allowed. And she'd have died a little more knowing she'd never feel his powerful muscles between her thighs again.

This morning, though, she couldn't tear her gaze away from Royce Devlin's face. She couldn't make herself turn away from the silently gasping lips and the rust-colored eyes with their flaring pupils. Royce Devlin looked the way she felt every time she watched the red stallion run.

"That's a fine looking animal," he said, understating the obvious.

"You've a keen sense of horse flesh for a pirate."

The dark pupils in the russet eyes flexed. "I'm no pirate."

So, he wasn't proud of being a pirate. He was a proud gentleman, however, and that was worse.

CHAPTER FOUR

Royce stared straight ahead, his grip on the reins tight. Plantation mistresses, like the ladies of any manor, cut their teeth on etiquette. So, where were Megan McCall's manners that she couldn't even accept a simple compliment about a horse?

Saved for those who do not serve, no doubt.

A scowl pulled his lips taut over his clenched teeth. Silently he cursed the judicial system that enslaved him, Peyton Lyttle who betrayed him, and Megan McCall who disdained him for what the previous two had made of him.

Or was he still the man he'd been when he'd run from that other autocratic woman?

The frustration ruffling his nerve endings felt the same. The indignation of subservience still pricked his pride. The notion that his future had been mapped out without regard to his own aspirations yet made his blood boil.

But he had options that weren't available to a brash boy. He had friends. He had connections. All he need do was bide his time for the right opportunity.

The gray's hoofbeats echoed a soothing cadence off the branches canopied over the road hooking away from the plantation house. Royce let the shade of the hardwoods through which they passed cool his inflamed ego.

An opportunity would present itself. Maybe even this very day. His hope heightened as they cleared the woods and she ordered him past a rutted path angling sharply onto high ground between them and the river. The road they traveled was the road to Norfolk.

Opportunity abounded in any port city for a man of the sea. Find himself one friend and he could set into motion any number of possibilities, though the only one acceptable to Royce Devlin would provide him his freedom, regain him his property, and restore the honor of his name.

She took the reins from his hands on the fringes of the city. "Pay attention, Mr. Devlin. I'll expect you to drive this route from time to time and, when I do, I won't want to be bothered instructing you."

Royce crooked one leg over the knee of the other and sprawled back in the phaeton seat. The Mistress of Hillhouse expected unquestioned obedience from whomever served her. But he wouldn't memorize the turns she took off the street of stylish shops and through the crowded lanes of the business district for her sake. He noted the names on the placards above doorways because he mapped the lay of the city for his own purposes.

Gulls shrieked overhead. A salty breeze swayed swingboard signs suspended from storefronts. The harbor he glimpsed through the breaks between the buildings called to him.

The plantation princess steered them onto a road lined with warehouses and inns. Beyond the buildings, graceful New England frigates, fleet colonial catches and yachts, and sleek Virginia-built schooners drifted around their anchor chains on the tide. They were small vessels when measured against a merchantman. But they weren't designed to sail the East Indies. They were built to course coastal waters and the reef-riddled Caribbean. Memory of one island in those tepid waters floated behind Royce's eyes.

The carriage stopped, and Royce's gaze sharpened on the half-built hull of a ship rising before him like a beached whale. She was a vessel designed to maneuver coastal waters and treacherous reefs. She was a schooner built for speed, built to outrun pirateers.

And she was surrounded by a motionless building crew, their black faces save for one white raised at the beach just below where the phaeton had stopped.

"You poxy, black-hided devil," snarled a voice already familiar to Royce. "I'll learn ya ta be so bloody cocky."

Between the road and a saw pit, a huge black man turned his back on Toombs. Toombs grabbed a plank off a pile of lumber and charged after the strutting negro.

Thwack, cracked the board across the giant's back. Slowly, ominously, the man dark as midnight turned. With one, massive hand, he reefed the improvised weapon from Toombs, sprawling the smaller man in the sand.

Toombs rolled to his feet, a length of metal glinting in his hand. But Megan McCall halted him with a shout. "Mr. Toombs! Dunn! Step forward."

The dark giant strode carelessly past the threatening point of Toombs' over-sized knife and climbed to the side of the phaeton. Folding his thick forearms across his broad chest, he cocked his face toward Megan McCall.

"What's the problem, Dunn?" she asked.

Toombs scrambled up to the roadside and jerked his thumb at the black man. "He thinks he can order about yer white shipwright."

Dunn's eyes gleamed like beads of India ink on the tip of a pen about to etch war terms across a page.

"Why shouldn't he, Mr. Toombs?" Megan McCall stated. "Dunn is the Master Shipwright in this yard."

Royce's attention sharpened on Dunn. Slave shipwrights were common. One trained to oversee and design a ship's construction, a Master Shipwright, was not. And slave this one must be, for colonial Virginia did not tolerate free negroes beyond thirty days within its borders.

"As for you, Mr. Toombs," their mistress growled, "I've already removed from your overeager hands a whip. You tempt me sorely at the moment over your knife. But since I am hesitant to render any man totally defenseless, I shall settle on you an alternative penalty for disrupting the building of my ship."

Her ship?

"You'll not receive your share of grog for today's mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks."

"No grog?" protested Toombs.

"Or the knife."

Grumbling, Toombs sheathed his double-edged blade.

"Next time it will cost you the knife, Mr. Toombs, and possibly your position."

"Who then would you get ta mind yer slaves?" he snarled.

"You're hardly the only overseer in Virginia, Mr. Toombs."

"I'm the only one what'll oversee a whole crew of blacks in the shipyards."

"Take the stew pot, Mr. Toombs, and serve up breakfast to my building crew."

Toombs blanched. "Me? Serve slaves?"

"Unless you've a mind to find yourself an overseeing position elsewhere. Though your reputation of beating slaves to death cautions any economic-minded planter against you."

She leaned from her seat and put her face close to Toombs'. "You and me, Mr. Toombs. We're the only ones who'll have each other. You know it as well as I."

Muttering under his breath, Toombs hoisted the kettle off the phaeton floor and retreated. She lifted her face at the black man. "Well, Dunn, is it settled to your liking?"

The man dark as obsidian pointedly rubbed the side of his head where an ear should have been, where only a puckered scar remained. "It's never been settled to my liking, Mrs. Tallmadge."

The black giant strutted off. Royce eyed the mistress of Hillhouse, noted the drawn line of her mouth and the way the blue prisms of her eyes flared and contracted. "Mrs. Tallmadge?"

The eyes turbulent as a storm-tossed sea flashed at him and two streaks of pink blazed the crests of her cheeks. "Never, never speak that name in my presence."

She snatched up the package of biscuits and shoved the bundle into Royce's hands. "Deliver these to Mr. Toombs, then come move me to my office."

As he swung down from the phaeton, he glanced at the warehouse she'd jerked her chin toward. The boxy structure butted up against the far side of the dock was as weathered as the placard anchored above its door that read McCall Shipping and Shipbuilding. Obviously, the young Megan McCall was not the McCall referred to by the sign. Royce placed his bet on the captain whose things were long packed away.

Royce followed Toombs toward a low-banked fire on the near side of the pier, the overseer's voice trailing. "The bloody pox on the witch."

"Mind your tongue," Royce shot as his longer strides eclipsed those of the shorter man. "The lady's your employer."

"Ain't no lady, that one." Toombs slammed down the stew pot with enough force to cause the planks of the makeshift table to bounce against their sawhorse legs. "Takes a witch to drive a carriage off a bluff and live to tell of it."

Royce set the bundle of biscuits beside the pot. "A carriage crash crippled her?"

"And kilt her husband."

Royce nodded, piecing details together. "Peter Tallmadge."

"Weren't but a boy, that one."

Royce glanced back at the parked phaeton. Only her pale, drawn face stood out from the darkness of carriage hood, mourning clothes, and midnight-black hair. "She caused the accident?"

Toombs spat in the sand in between Royce's feet. "What kilt Peter Tallmadge weren't no accident."

***

Megan slumped back in the armed Windsor chair and stared up at the doored bookcase stacked atop the fall-front secretary desk. Anyone sound of body couldn't know how many barriers the world presented one who was not. Just as no man could fathom all that a woman gave up upon marriage.

Her current dilemma involved the keyhole of the locked bookshelf. The blasted thing was out of her reach. But it wouldn't be out of reach of a man's hand, even one confined to a chair as she was. Of course, the man whose services she'd purchased possessed a body sound enough to wield a ship's wheel through the highest of seas.

She peeked over her shoulder at Royce Devlin. His hands gripped the waist-high rail that partitioned the loft office from the rest of the warehouse. That railing measured about waist high on her. It met her indentured man somewhat lower.

Megan tore her gaze from the narrow hips of a man who had apparently spent little of his life sitting on his backside. She wouldn't be fooled by his laborer's physique, however. He was a pirate and a curious one. Blast him and all his questions.

Who is the Captain?

Are those forms against the back wall patterns for the ship's ribs?

Why is the warehouse empty? Why aren't you in the shipping business any more? Why don't you lease out the space?

And he'd paced. She'd lost track of how many times he'd strode between the stairway at the far end of the narrow loft to the window next to her desk overlooking the building site and harbor. All that male in motion was entirely too distracting. Even when he'd pause beside her desk and watch out the window, energy surged through him. Even when he'd sit in one of the chairs flanking the gaming table pressed against the back wall, his long legs sprawled out in front of him.

Even standing still, as he now did, energy bunched in his shoulders, flexed down his back, and rippled through his thighs. And damn her wretched luck, she needed his long reach.

She snagged her ring of keys from the dimity pocket tied at her waist. "Mr. Devlin, I need the bookcase unlocked."

His thick thigh moved into view at her elbow as she shuffled through the collection of keys on the ring. The fingers of his broad hand curled against the fawn colored broadcloth of his breeches. Even as he waited, tension crackled from that muscled thigh almost brushing the arm of her chair.

If he intended to intimidate her, he was close to accomplishing the trick. Not that she'd let him in on the fact. Not that she'd reveal that her fingers felt thick and clumsy on the small gold key she finally held up to him. She even refused to flinch when the pads of his fingers brushed the backs of her knuckles as he grasped the key.

The double doors swung open as he released the catch. She snatched a ledger off the bottom shelf. A sheaf of papers tied into a tube rolled off the second shelf. He caught them in one hand and fingered them as though testing their weight and texture could tell him what was printed inside their tight curl.

"Ships' plans?" he asked.

Logical deduction given the hull in the yard outside of her window. She spread the ledger open across the papers cluttering her desktop. "Uhuh."

"Mind if I take a look at them?"

"Yes, I mind," she murmured, dipping her pen and pretending not to notice the masculine arm stretched past her cheek. "Please put them back, Mr. Devlin."

He hesitated but complied. But his fingers lingered on the spines of the books on the shelves...long, well-formed fingers. "This is quite a collection on the subject of shipbuilding."

She scratched the nub of the pen down the margin of a paper already crowded with numbers, adding more, trying to ignore him.

"The Captain's, your father's collection, I presume?"

"You presume correctly."

"Was he a sea captain?"

"Yes."

"In private service?"

"In his own service."

"Which waters did he sail?"

"In his lifetime, most all of them."

"How long has he been dead?"

The pen point stilled against the page. "I never said he was dead."

"No, you didn't."

"Did someone else tell you he was dead?" she demanded.

"No. I just assumed -- "

She moved the pen point over the page. "Beware what you assume, Mr. Devlin. That's how gossip begins."

"I wasn't looking for gossip."

"Good, because I've no patience for idle talk."

He snorted. "And I've no patience for idle employment."

Megan re-dipped her pen. "Your state of employment is not my fault, Mr. Devlin."

"Perhaps you'd allow me the entertainment of one of the captain's books."

"To read?"

"No. To sit on. I have an overwhelming need to view my limited environment from new heights."

The paper tore beneath the tip of her pen. She glared up at him. "Mind your tongue, Mr. Devlin. I'll not tolerate insolence."

"Is there anything you tolerate?"

Megan McCall's sea-blue eyes widened and, for an instant, surprise flared across their unguarded pupils. Then she blinked and the shutters fell shut once more, leaving Royce wondering if he'd seen any softening in her at all.

She leaned toward the open window and called for Dunn.

"Do you so fear me that you must summon your Master Shipwright to force my compliance?" he muttered.

She arched her fine eyebrows at him. "Should I fear you enough to order myself a guard?"

He thought of their exchange outside Hillhouse's kitchen that morning when her mere presence had sent the brash Sarah skittering. Megan McCall had held the menace card then, the one with the dire warning about controlling the next fourteen years of his life. But he'd drawn a few cards of his own since, learned a few details about the woman who'd bought his papers.

Flattening one hand across the ledger in front of her and gripping the back of her chair in the other, Royce leaned close, close enough that she should have flinched. She didn't. He had to give her points for courage.

"Too late for caution, Princess. By the time your shipwright even lifts his hand to the door latch, I could snap that pretty neck of yours."

The prisms of her eyes surged with reaction. But not another visible muscle so much as ticked as she delivered with chilling calm, "One flaw to your threat, Mr. Devlin."

He gave her higher marks for daring.

"Death threatens only those who value life."

Like a plucked bowstring let loose, he snapped upright. Below, the warehouse door rattled open and shut. She shuffled papers out from under her ledger book as though she'd not just gambled her life on a stranger's character. Royce retreated to the farthest corner of the loft, where the long outside wall met the short back wall of the office, opposite the break in the railed partition.

Dunn rose from the stairway. He paused, his keen, black eyes scrutinizing Royce. Megan McCall motioned her Master Shipwright to the chair beside the secretary. Dunn's behind had barely contacted the wooden seat when she thrust one of the rumpled papers from the desktop at him. "Look at this invoice for ironwork."

Snatching up another and waving it at him, she snapped, "This is another for the same items. Look at their dates."

Royce folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the short inside wall. Dunn's ability to read didn't surprise Royce. No Virginia law forbid educating a slave. And, given this one's status as a master shipwright, the ability was necessary. But, Dunn's being held responsible for purchasing materials intrigued Royce.

"I should be pleased construction is going so fast that we're using up such quantities of materials," his mistress remarked cryptically. "But the building is not going that swiftly, is it Dunn?"

Frowning, Dunn shook his head.

"Am I to assume we've a stockpile of these items?"

"You can assume whatever you want," Dunn muttered without looking up.

"Let me word that another way. Have we a stockpile of these items?"

He looked her in the eye. "No."

"Then account for them."

Dunn tossed the invoices onto the desk in front of her, leaned back in the chair, and folded his arms over his chest. "Surely you don't place such responsibility on a mere black man. Surely that's the job of the overseer."

"I trust you, Dunn."

"But not your white overseer? How about your white shipwright? Can you trust him? And the white blacksmith doing your ironwork, what of him?"

"You seem to be overlooking your negro crew in your accusations, Dunn."

"For good reason. Who'd buy anything from a slave?"

"Point well taken," she conceded without demurring, then leaned toward Dunn adding ominously, "By week's end, though, we shall have the proof of where the materials are going, won't we?"

***

The dappled gray rump of the harness horse bobbed before Royce same as it had during the ride to town that morning. Only now it trotted them away from the shipyard toward the plantation. The filly knew the route well, leaving Royce much to his own musing. And he'd already had a day full of undirected thought. He didn't need more.

"I'll take the reins, Mr. Devlin."

He handed the leathers into his mistress' hands. If things continued the way they were going, he wouldn't have to worry about spending the next fourteen years as a bondsman. He'd die of boredom long before the sentence was completed.

"You're physically a very strong man, Mr. Devlin."

In a glance, Royce took in the little, rounded chin and upturned nose of his mistress' profile. He also noted her rod-straight spine and forward focused eyes.

"You're well structured. Yet you seem of the intelligence to well govern that physical aspect of yourself."

Glancing down at the road they'd traveled away from Hillhouse that morning, he muttered a low, "What ill wind doth sails me through the eddies of two such wretched seas?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said, I learned early the discipline of obeying those in whose hands my future lies."

Her mouth tightened. "I watched you at the rail of that merchantman. I knew what I was buying."

"Pride yourself on knowing good stock, do you?"

She gave him a dark glance. Royce turned his attention to the path they climbed away from fallow fields, wooded copse, and riverbank. In places, the deep ruts exposed bare rock.

"This isn't the road we traveled to town this morning," he said.

"It's the bluff road," she provided.

"Bluff?" Takes a witch to drive a carriage off a bluff and live to tell of it. What kilt Peter Tallmadge was no accident.

Royce groaned. The phaeton shot onto the bluff's crest. Royce's hip hit the buggy's armrest. "We're going too fast."

She didn't respond.

"Ease up that filly," he ordered.

But the curve of the bluff ahead rushed at them. He glanced from that imminent bend to the woman driving them toward it. More urgently he commanded, "Pull her back!"

Still no response.

Royce grabbed the reins out of Megan McCall's hands and hauled back. Horse and carriage skidded around the corner to a rocking halt. Dust swirled forward, engulfing phaeton, horse, and passengers.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" he bellowed, twisting on the seat to find himself staring into the black bore of a pistol.

"Give me the reins, Mr. Devlin."

Reluctantly he laid them across his mistress' upraised palm.

"If you ever again even attempt to take control away from me, Mr. Devlin, I will kill you."

Crazy, he thought. She is, without a doubt, crazy.

CHAPTER FIVE

She didn't drive the bluff road with as much abandon the second, the third, nor the fourth day. For that, Royce was thankful. He'd end his fourteen-year sentence with lead poisoning from that pistol of hers before he'd go careening off some bluff with a mad woman. But, she remained reckless in other ways.

Like today. Dunn had supplied the evidence of who'd been stealing her ironwork and she'd ordered the culprit up to her office.

As Tommy, her white shipwright, climbed the stairway into the loft office, she'd said in that no nonsense tone Royce had learned to heed, "Now would be a good time for you to take your mid-day meal, Mr. Devlin."

"I can wait until the building crew eats."

She'd leveled a look in his direction reminiscent of the one she'd given him over the barrel of her pistol. "I'd rather you ate now."

He shouldn't care that the woman was going to confront, alone, a man she was about to accuse of thievery. He should forget the fact that she was a featherweight in his arms and helplessly trapped in her desk chair. He should leave her to the self- destruction she seemed hell-bent on accomplishing.

He swore he would have, were his own future not tied inexorably to hers. He paused at the base of the stairway and listened, ready to charge back up the stairs if he was needed.

Whatever she said, she said in a voice too low for Royce to hear. But whatever her threat, it made Tommy squawk indignantly, "I will not forfeit ma position on the say-so of any slave."

This time he heard her tight voice. "I never mentioned the color of your accuser, Tommy."

Royce gripped the railing and raised a foot to the first step...in case Tommy retaliated. But, like the found-out man that he was, the shipwright pleaded leniency and blubbered an offering in exchange. "Weren't ma idea, ma'am. Was Mr. Mannie what suggested it."

Royce stepped back from the open stairway, shedding his readiness. His mistress had outmaneuvered the able-bodied Tommy on the one level she could yet navigate, with her tongue. She had her control, in spite of her reckless nature.

In a half dozen strides, Royce was out of the warehouse and across the pier. He jumped down onto the sandy beach, smelling the vermin before he saw it or heard it.

"She givin' Tommy the boot up there?" Toombs scrambled out from the shady underside of the pier where he spent the better part of his days and followed Royce. "I know what yer thinkin'."

Trying to ignore the overseer, Royce snagged a trencher off the stack between saw pit and firepit.

"She could bring 'im up on charges." Toombs snatched up one of the scooped out wooden plates for himself. "But won't do her no good, not with just a couple slaves her only witnesses."

Royce glanced at Toombs, wondering how much the man knew.

Toombs' eyes twinkled. "Law here says slaves can't testify against no whites."

Royce dipped out a scant ration of stew for himself from the pot hung over a low- banked fire. He didn't work hard enough to justify an abundant helping. He noticed that Toombs, who did nothing but occasionally show his face to the nervous-about-the- black-crew-in-the-shipyard merchants, helped himself to a meaty portion.

Royce leaned back against a piling to eat standing, weary of hours sitting in Megan McCall's office. Toombs, his beady eyes roving across the workers about the ship's hull, pulled a small bottle from inside his jacket, tore its cork out by his teeth, and dumped the contents into the pot.

"A bit late to be spicing the stew," Royce remarked flatly.

"Ain't no spice fer neither of us," muttered Toombs, plopping onto his behind in the sand.

Royce frowned at the scurrilous man hunched like a fat rat in the dank shade of the pier.

"I know just what two it was what put the finger on Tommy." Toombs jutted his chin toward the hull of the half-built ship.

Sighting off the angle of Toombs' soiled hat brim, Royce spotted a pair of caulkers perched on the wooden staging framing the hull stuffing hemp-like oakum into the seams. Three times a day, Megan McCall allowed him to escape the confines of her office. Over a mug of grog on the first morning, he'd exchanged greetings with Otis, the slighter of that pair. By mid-day meal, any conversation he attempted was answered by a cursory nod and a nervous glance in Dunn's direction. From then on, he was left to himself along with Tommy and Toombs.

Toombs nudged Royce's ankle with the toe of his boot and jerked his chin upward. Royce peered through the gaps between the planks of the pier. Closing the warehouse door quietly behind himself, Tommy glanced sheepishly in the direction of the schooner, lowered his face, and slunk away.

Megan McCall's voice sounded from the open loft window, calling for Dunn.

Toombs grunted. "Kinda vexes a man, gettin' drug down to the level of that one."

Royce gave Toombs a sharp look.

Toombs crammed a spoonful of stew into his mouth and grinned the same nasty grin he'd shown as he'd overseen the signing of Royce's indentureship papers. "Hard on her men, she is."

Royce chewed at his meal, trying not to think about the rotting teeth in Toombs' mouth or the lack of his own freedom. Both were equally distasteful.

Toombs persisted, talking around his full mouth. "Chewed up Peter Tallmadge and spat him out up on that bluff, she did."

"I doubt that she meant to kill anyone," Royce muttered.

"The way that carriage was drove straight off the bluff is proof that crash weren't no accident," mumbled Toombs, meat juice dribbling from the corners of his mouth. "Nope. She took her revenge when she found out about the scandal."

The question was out of Royce's mouth before he could remind himself of Toombs' penchant for gossip. "What scandal?"

"Peter Tallmadge weren't but a boy playing at men's games." Toombs snorted gleefully. "Got himself deep in debt."

"Generations of women have lost inheritances bailing out husbands who gamble poorly. Few kill their husbands."

Toombs sniffed and packed in another mouthful of stew. "Married himself a wealthy plantation heiress, Peter Tallmadge thought he did," the overseer mumbled. "Thought he could run with the highfalutinest of the dandies. Found out in short order that Hillhouse weren't so rich, he did."

Royce thought of the furrowed but empty fields along the road to town, fields that should be green with tobacco plants.

"But don't you fret none." Toombs winked. "The widow's land rich. She'll serve yer purposes."

Royce's fingers tightened on his trencher. "I've no intention of using the woman."

Toombs waved him off. "T'was hard cash Peter Tallmadge needed to pay off his bad debts. So, he joined the rest of the flock with failing farms and made themselves a friend in John Robertson. You know who John Robertson is, don't cha?"

"He was Treasurer of Virginia Colony until he died."

Toombs cackled delightedly. "Had ourselves a mess of frettin' planters all the while Robertson's books were bein' audited. Shoulda seen 'em scramble when it come out he loaned retired money to his plantation friends."

"And you think Megan McCall killed her husband because he borrowed money that was supposed to be out of circulation?"

The grease glistened on Toombs' stubbled chin. "For the sake of covering up scandal, her kind'll take most any means. You'd be knowin' how unforgivin' the highborn can be of their own, wouldn't cha?"

A gristly piece of stew meat wadded in Royce's throat.

"As fer Miss High-and-Mighty up there -- " Toombs jabbed his thumb up at the warehouse window. " -- Have no doubt about her unforgivin' ways. You hear how Dunn lost his ear?"

The hair at the nape of Royce's neck stood on end. Stew juice bubbled from one corner of Toombs' grin. "Them at Hillhouse always give their slaves too much freedom. Give that Dunn his way with that fancy maid, Jaisy, they did."

Royce chewed slowly. That explained why Dunn slept above the kitchen, where the house-servants slept, where Jaisy would if her mistress didn't keep her in the room next to her own.

Toombs cackled. "That buck and bitch been feuding since last harvest when Miss High-and-Mighty got herself broke up."

So the maid's sleeping arrangement wasn't just to meet her mistress' needs.

"Ever since that uppity, black-hided devil lost his ear, nary a word been spoke between him and his yellow witch." Toombs spat in the sand. "Ain't no figuring the maid siding with her mistress against her man. 'Specially since Miss High-and-Mighty don't abide her pappy's promise to free Dunn and his kin."

Royce eyed Toombs, wondering how much of what the man said was true. Parts added up. Some just reminded him of his own experience with a woman who didn't keep her promises. Slowly, Royce chewed the thin stew.

Toombs slurped from the edge of his trencher. "Dunn run. Around here, when a slave runs, he gets himself nailed by the ear to the pillory for the day ta ponder his misdeed."

Royce's throat closed around the stew juice that seemed more destined to end up soiling the beach than filling his stomach.

"Only Dunn weren't in no shape to ponder nothin' that day." Toombs smacked his lips. "Hadda beat him senseless ta keep him still long enough until it was time ta cut him free."

"Barbaric," Royce growled, swallowing hard.

"You should see what we does ta ass chasin' bucks."

Royce's jaw clenched.

"Course," Toombs spewed on, heedless of Royce's mounting distaste, "be a shame to castrate that one, as fine a stud as he'd make. A good start for a breedin' stable. That's how some of them failin' plantations are surviving, and right finely too what with an embargo against importing slaves. Yup, fine business. Wouldn't mind gettin' into it m'self."

In one unbroken movement, Royce flung his trencher aside, hauled Toombs up by his grubby shirtfront, and slammed him back against a piling. Toombs' hat popped off his head and the air oomphed out of him. His feet dangled and his eyes bulged as Royce snarled, "You ever speak to me about slave breeding again and I'll break your bloody neck!"

Royce removed his hands from Toombs' throat. Toombs dropped to the ground, coughing and clutching at his throat. The shipbuilding crew had stopped working and now stared. Vaulting up onto the pier, Royce fled into the warehouse.

Only twice in his life had Royce acted rashly. The first had cost him what was rightly his by birth. The price of the second had been his family. All he had left was the pride of a man who didn't vent his frustration and anger on other beings, the pride of a man who knew he would find an honest way out of the bonds of indentureship. Squashing the life from an overseer, even one as vile and disgusting as Toombs, wasn't going to bring him any closer to the freedom he coveted.

Dunn stepped from the stairs in front of him. Royce moved aside, the few mouthfuls of stew he'd swallowed balling up in his gut. The door latch scraped from its catch. Bile climbed the back of Royce's throat and he remembered what else Toombs had done today in the shipyard. Over his shoulder, Royce muttered, "Toombs put something in the stew after he and I dished up."

Dunn's hand stilled on the half open door. "Jalap?"

"He didn't say."

Dunn peeled a smooth, black lip back from brilliant white teeth and gave Royce a mocking smile. "If I were you, Devlin, I wouldn't eat any more of that stew. Not unless I was in need of a good purging."

Dunn stepped out of the warehouse and shut the door between them. Royce climbed the steps to the loft office. He frowned at the narrow back of the woman who wore mourning clothes for a man whose name she refused to use. Silently, he damned the fates that had brought him to the brink of his goal only to cast him into the control of a bitter woman who did not honor even the promise of a father.

He was hers for the next fourteen years. He'd be near unto fifty, if he lived so long. Royce's mouth dried. Blood drummed in his ears. The panic surging through him screamed for him to run.

But he was not a man governed by hysteria. There were ways to shorten the term of his contract. In the meantime, he could improve his situation. Surely he yet possessed enough command to persuade a woman of reason to better use him.

"You waste your money on me," he said, striding across the room toward the desk.

Megan McCall's eyelashes didn't so much as flick away from the papers spread across the desktop before her.

"You're short a shipwright with Tommy gone. The coin you spent on me would be better utilized by placing me in his stead."

Still, she did not respond.

Impatiently, he exhaled. "At least let me labor in the shipyard while you work up here."

Without so much as a glance, she countered, "And have you carrying me about all filthy and sweated up, Mr. Devlin? No."

"Anybody with a minimum of strength could carry you about. Surely one of your slaves could do the job."

Her thin index finger stilled on the page of numbers in front of her and she lifted her pale face a fraction. "My slaves are trained shipwrights and carpenters, Mr. Devlin."

"Trained?" He snorted. "I can do any of their jobs."

"I doubt that very much," she parried, her little, ink stained finger moving down the columns once more.

"Blast it woman, at least I recognize a bow that's too slim when I see one!"

Her finger stilled once more. She tilted her face toward him and hitched an eyebrow. "My ship's bow is not too narrow."

"Says who? Your Master Shipwright? He may well have designed for you a vessel that will drive herself under with full sail in heavy seas."

She leaned back in the chair and looked him in the eye. "You don't know nearly as much about ships as you think you do."

He grabbed the arm of her chair, frustrated by the stubbornness of the woman who hadn't had the sense to read the contracts of a pair of indentureds before buying them, a woman who wasted her money and a man's talents. "I've worked nearly every sea- faring job to be had, sailed everything from sloops to merchant-men, including schooners. I've captained my own vessel, by God!"

He hovered close, his face inches from hers. "I can read shear plans, floor plans, body plans, whatever drafts you have for whatever vessel you build. I can judge a proper angle when I see one. Mine is as well a trained eye as you'll find anywhere. Read my papers and you'll find me apprenticed. You'll find I've near onto twenty years of experience!"

She looked at his hands gripping the arm of her chair. If she valued life, she'd heed the warning of his white knuckles, of the tremor his clenched fingers vibrated through the wood frame.

She looked him dead center in the eye, her tone like the calm before a storm. "I have read your papers, Mr. Devlin. I found in them all of what you say, including your formal training with a Master Shipwright, an apprenticeship you never completed."

Royce released the arm of her chair, his spine stiffening him to his full height.

She craned her neck, her fathomless gaze locked on his. "A trained eye, I'm sure, Mr. Devlin. But, to what use have you put that eye since? Surely not to build a ship."

"Test me," he challenged.

She stared at him. "Alright. One question. How do you make a plank fit to an angle?"

"You could shape green wood or -- "

"And have the schooner's bow rot? Not in this yard."

"Or, as I was about to suggest, cut the proper angle from a tree already so inclined and let it dry."

"But, like most without any real experience, you first considered the easier, quicker method. As for the merits of my Master Shipwright -- " Royce opened his mouth. She raised a silencing finger. "Dunn was most capably trained by my father, Shea McCall, the same man who trained me."

"Trained you? I think you mistake a father's indulgence -- "

"No indulgence. I've studied shipbuilding all twenty years of my life and out of a love for ships. Had you completed your apprenticeship rather than dallied with the sea, your eye might not have miscalculated the narrowness of my schooner's bow. She will ride high and fast, faster than any pirateer now in the water. I know this," she said, her voice lowering, tightening, "because I, Mr. Devlin, I designed her to do so."

Royce blanched. "You're the vessel's designer?

"That's right, Mr. Devlin. And I'll be damned before I turn loose on her any pirate."

"Yet you entrust her construction to a Master Shipwright who defies you, who has reason to insure her failure and yours by allowing the hull to be built too narrow."

"I entrust the task to Dunn because his future is as dependent upon the success of that ship as mine."

And likely mine, Royce realized with chilling clarity.

***

The warehouse door rattled open. A breeze shimmied up through the spindles of the railed partition, across the gaming table and Royce. He pulled himself upright on the chair where he'd spent the better part of an hour brooding over Megan McCall's sharp rebuttal and glanced at her.

She seemed oblivious to the groaning of each stair beneath the foot of someone of considerable weight, to the linen cap bobbing into sight from the stairwell and the fleshy, flushed face beneath it. A neckless head swiveled atop a barrelled torso from which arms big as hams angled. The man wore black leather breeches and smelled of fire and hot metal.

Finally, Megan McCall lifted her face from her books and turned in her chair toward the man breathing heavily at the top of her stairs. A smile lifted the corners of her full lips.

Like a load of grapeshot, the beauty of the girl she'd once been blasted Royce. But the smile didn't reach her eyes as she greeted the man. "Welcome, Mr. Mannie."

Mannie? Tommy's Mr. Mannie? Tommy's partner in crime?

She patted the seat of the chair beside the secretary desk. "Come sit here, Mr. Mannie."

Royce perched on the edge of his seat. Tommy had been a boy. The culprit she was about to confront was a man of considerable weight and muscle. He'd likely not be disarmed by mere words no matter how well honed the tongue flinging them.

Mannie smudged the sweat from his meaty brow with the back of a thick hand. Dropping heavily into the chair, he glanced questioningly at Royce.

"Pay no mind to Mr. Devlin," she said. "He's but a servant."

The blithe dismissal raised Royce's hackles. He wasn't accustomed to being addressed as though he was no more than a piece of furniture. Nor was he about to let her cast him from the loft like an unnecessary ottoman. Mannie was too much man for a slight built girl with useless legs to handle.

"A whiskey to wet your tongue, Mr. Mannie? Irish of course." She didn't wait for a reply. Snagging a bottle and two stout glasses from a deep drawer in the desk, she poured each glass half full and handed one to Mannie.

Mannie tossed down the full amount in one gulp, slammed the glass down on the corner of the secretary's fall front, grinned and smacked, "There's noo beatin' Irish whiskey."

"Me own father always said," spouted the deceptively smiling Megan McCall, lapsing into an Irish brogue. "Keep aboot a bottle of Ireland's finest for them what appreciate it."

In two tosses, she drained her glass without so much as a blink of an eyelash. Mannie's jaw dropped. Royce raised an eyebrow.

Refilling both glasses, she leaned back in her chair. "So, Mr. Mannie, what brings you to me personally?"

"I brung you your latest order of ironwork, lass."

"You needn't have delivered it yourself. I could have sent someone."

Mannie's bushy eyebrows knitted together above the bridge of his nose, and his voice became heavy with feigned concern. "This one I thought best delivered by meself."

"And why is that, Mr. Mannie?"

The burly Irishman's deep-set eyes shifted between Megan and the swirling liquor in the bottom of his glass. "There's the matter of some accounts to be settled before I extend to you any further credit, lass. Before I dare leave any more of me work with you."

If her cordial greeting of a man named in a crime against her and her unflinching handling of her liquor had surprised Royce, the disarming pleasantness of her retort shocked. "The credit of Shea McCall Shipbuilding has always been good with you. And McCall Shipbuilding has always had you do its ironwork."

"True," trilled the Irishman. "But Shea McCall's no longer at the helm."

"I realize the business has fallen off since my father's disappearance," she intoned without apology. "But the yard is back on full tack again, now that Shea McCall's daughter has taken the helm."

A solicitous grin rippled across Mannie's lips and the bushy eyebrows edged up from the flesh-engorged eyes. "But lass, you're untried."

The smile cooled on Megan's lips. The tension mounted. Royce felt it, more than Mannie he was sure. For either Mannie didn't know the trouble he faced, or he was incredibly bold to demand what he did.

Megan's, "fine, Mr. Mannie," shattered the silence and her smile took on a bittersweet line. "We'll go down to the pier, weigh in your goods, then come back up here for payment."

"There's no need for that," Mannie sputtered.

"But you just said that payment on account was due before you could leave more work."

"I mean the weighin' in, lass. The ironwork is already weighed on me own scales and marked for you on the invoices."

"Surely, Mr. Mannie, you'd not expect me to be any less responsible in my business practices than yourself," scoffed Megan. "Don't you check what suppliers bring you against their invoices before taking receipt?"

Mannie laughed nervously. "Would be poor business for sure. So I'll just leave the ironwork off with Tommy to check."

Megan's smile flattened. "I dismissed Tommy earlier today."

Mannie blanched.

"With yours and Mr. Devlin's help, I'll check the weights myself."

She lifted her arms. "Mr. Devlin, move me down to the pier. Mr. Mannie, please bring a chair along for me. Dunn should have my scales set up by your cart and ready for us."

Stunned, Mannie rose to his feet. Numbly, he gulped the last of his whiskey. Lamely, he picked up her chair and followed.

Megan McCall had set her trap. The smithy had sprung it. She was cunning. Royce gave her that. But she was a fool if she thought she could publicly humiliate any man and escape retaliation.

CHAPTER SIX

Dunn plucked another weight from the pan counterbalancing Mannie's metal work. Megan leaned forward in her chair on the pier as the arrow on the scales swung between numbers. The arrowhead settled, Dunn called out the size of the last weight he'd removed. Megan subtracted the number from the figures already on the chalkboard in her lap and looked at the smithy.

"The drifts are short by a considerable weight, Mr. Mannie, more so than were the brackets."

Mannie mopped at his sweating forehead. "You're sure your scales are set accurate, lass?"

"You saw the standard weights tested on them yourself before we started."

He nodded and blinked, looking anywhere about the wharf but at her. "Must be me own scales then that are off."

Megan laid the slate in her lap and folded her hands over its chalked figures. Mannie hadn't even asked to see the figures to tally them himself. Like the final nail in a coffin, that last piece of evidence condemned a man with whom her father had done business for years, a man she had trusted.

Megan drew a deep breath. "That must be the case. And how long do you suppose your scale might have been off, Mr. Mannie?"

"Not too long, I'm sure." He forced a smile. "I check them often. But, just to be sure, I'll settle on you a few extra weight of drifts."

A sense of deja vu struck Megan, of standing in her father's shadow as another craftsman under similar circumstances had said similar words to Shea McCall. Captain McCall had used his sharp sense of humor to avoid thanking a man for giving him what he'd tried to cheat him out of, to drive home the point that the craftsman shouldn't try the ruse again.

Megan pasted on a smile. "You wouldn't be making that settlement out of me own stock, would you now, Mr. Mannie?"

Mannie paled, the same reaction the other craftsman had given her father. She forced a chuckle. "Of course you wouldn't, you being a long time business associate of my father's. You wouldn't cheat Shea McCall's daughter."

Retrieving the invoices from beneath the chalkboard, Megan x'd out Mannie's printed figures and wrote in her own. She held out the sheets to Mannie. "I've adjusted the figures to match the amounts I have received. Do they match with your new calculations, Mr. Mannie?"

Mannie glanced at the paper and nodded.

"Just write up a new invoice for the remainder when you deliver it. As for payment on my account, if you'll accompany me back up to the office."

"That won't be necessary."

"But if you feel my account's overdrawn -- "

"Wasn't never that," mumbled Mannie. "Was just that you was yet untried. But in the face of your kind understanding of my grievous miscalculations, 'tis the least I can do but place a little faith in so acute a newcomer. Besides, you are Shea McCall's daughter."

"That I am indeed."

"By your leave, lass...Miss McCall."

She nodded. Mannie the smith wheeled his cart from the wharf. Master Shipwright Dunn ordered the ironwork moved into the warehouse and the scales locked away. Overseer Toombs sneered and slunk back under the pier. Normalcy settled once more over the shipyard of the crippled widow struggling to build a ship. Megan raised her arms toward her bondsman. "I wish to return to my office."

Royce Devlin scooped her up, taking her breath away. He always did. But, today, she was more weary than usual and she failed to catch the gasp before it escaped her lips.

His rusty eyes searched her face. "Did I hurt you?"

She shook her head and cinched her arms around his neck, tucking herself close so he couldn't see the weakening, the longing in her eyes. She'd dreamed of a man who would sweep her off her feet. Not in the literal sense that Royce Devlin swept her up, each time reminding her of what she'd missed by marrying a man she hadn't loved, of what she could never have damaged as she now was. She'd dreamed of a man who would capture her heart and soul the way her father had her mother's.

Royce reached for the warehouse door, his arm tightening across her back, the blousing fabric of his shirt brushing her nose. Megan inhaled the clean scent of the shirt, of him.

She and Jaisy had puzzled over how a man who used little of the wash water from the pitcher placed nightly on his dressing table kept himself as sweet smelling as Royce Devlin did. At least they had until last night when Jaisy opened the second story sitting room window to catch a breeze off the river.

"Aaah, your Mr. Devlawn takes his bath in de river."

Megan had stopped fanning herself and sat up a little straighter on the couch. "As we speak?"

Moonlight had backlit Jaisy's profile, tracing her curling lips. "As we speak, he climbs onto de dock. Mmmmm."

"What's he doing?"

"Strolling toward de house. Got his clothes in that big fist of his."

"He's naked?" Megan asked through the darkness of the room in a shocked whisper.

"As a jay bird," Jaisy murmured, poking her head out the window and peering down toward the entryway. "Proud of dat little t'ing, he is."

"Jaisy!"

The maid had turned from the window and planted her hands on her hips. "I take you out in de hall. You can see for yourself when he come up dem stairs outside your door."

"You don't have to hang on so tight," he said, bringing Megan abruptly back to the present. "I won't drop you."

Hardly the problem, she silently lamented, loosening her grip on the well-muscled shoulders. The loft stairs creaked beneath their combined weight, reminding her of Jaisy's irreverent proposal of last night. Megan actually felt the heat of a blush climbing into her cheeks.

"You were awfully certain Tommy hadn't gone to Mannie and forewarned him." Her bondsman's voice rumbled in her ears like the low beat of a distant drum.

She fought to regain control of senses worn thin by a hard day, forcing a flatness into her voice. "I told him, if he did, I'd bring charges against him."

"You going to keep doing business with Mannie?"

"I'm not about to change devils just when I've learned the ways of this one." She sighed. "Besides, I doubt there's another smith in Norfolk that'll give this lady shipbuilder credit."

Her bondsman paused at the top of the steps, his russet-shaded gaze locking on her face. "You believe that?"

"I know it," she said, the image of a moonlit Royce Devlin striding naked across her lawn taunting her weary mind.

He started for the front of the loft.

"Not the desk." She fumbled in the folds of her skirt for her dimity pocket, nodding toward the back of the loft. "There."

He turned toward the short back wall of the loft, toward a door with a hammered lock. She held up a key from her key ring. "Can you manage the lock and me?"

"If you hang on."

The Saints preserve her. The last thing she should be doing is tightening her grip on this man. Unfortunately, it was the only thing she could do given her present condition.

Stooping, Royce fit the key into the lock. He didn't understand the woman who used cunning to manipulate an agreeable settlement out of a thieving smithy and compliance from a malicious overseer yet raced her buggy at break neck speed over the very bluff where her husband had died and she herself been crippled. He didn't understand how she could command in one instant and, in the next, become the fragile female he'd first seen on the couch in the plantation library.

He didn't understand her demand for propriety when she could string her arms around his neck and tuck her female curves against his chest. He wasn't prepared for the wave of arousal the whisper of her breath against his neck shot through him. He straightened and the door banged open against the inside wall of the adjoining room.

"I should have warned you to hang onto the door," Megan said, opening her eyes.

He was staring at her, curiously, almost in the way a man should look upon a woman. Her fingers curled against the puckered seam of his shirt below the nape of his neck.

"You've left off your jacket again." To Megan's chagrin, she sounded more breathless than chastening.

"It binds."

"Papa was a bit -- " What? Narrower in the shoulders? Less broad in the back? " -- shorter limbed than you."

Eyes that reminded her of Cinnabar's coppery coat gazed at her, plumbing depths she wasn't sure she wanted Royce Devlin to see. "We'll visit the tailor." Her voice trailed. "Tomorrow."

Blinking, she nodded into the room. "You can put me down on the bed."

He strode into the narrow room, glancing about. "There doesn't seem to be anything in here worth locking away."

"The lock on the door is for privacy."

She was grateful he didn't ask whose privacy. He just laid her on the small bed tucked in beside the low chest on which her father's trunk sat whenever he was in port. The top of the chest of drawers had stood empty over a year now. As did the chair beneath the curtained window in the opposite corner where her mother had sewn and read while father worked. Imperia Hill McCall had so loved Shea McCall that she'd ultimately surrendered her life rather than go on without him.

Pain shot through Megan, piercing her heart, flaying her soul, and gripping her body. "Bring me my whiskey, Mr. Devlin."

Megan elbowed herself up toward the headboard of the bed where she'd napped as a child, where her parents had taken time for themselves away from the restrictive environment of a plantation house. There would be no such stolen moments in this room or any other for Megan McCall, no soul mate for a woman damaged beyond repair.

Digging her heels into the mattress, Megan pushed. Pain twisted up her calf and a cry tore from her throat.

Royce dropped the whisky bottle on the desk and bolted across the loft. But, what he saw upon the little bed tucked into the corner of the room at the rear of the loft stopped him dead in the doorway. "You moved your legs!"

With spastic motions Megan McCall laid her legs flat, croaking, "What is your point, Mr. Devlin?"

"I thought you suffered the paralysis."

"Well, now you see that I don't."

***

Sitting back in the seat of the phaeton Megan McCall guided along a shop lined street bustling with afternoon trade, Royce surreptitiously perused her pale cheek and the pinched corner of her mouth. The question he meant to ponder was, why didn't she use her legs? The question that formed in his head was, what in the name of God had aroused him about this slip of a woman? She was too small, too infirmed, too contrary.

Need for release. That's all it could be. He'd been locked away for months in a prison cell without the sweet scent of a woman, without a gentle touch or tender look.

Then why hadn't he taken advantage of Sarah's offerings aboard the merchantman? She'd been willing, available, eager even. That puzzle had kept him sleepless through most of last night. And when he had slept, his slumber had been unsettled by dreams he couldn't quite remember.

Her tiny, leather-gloved fingers drew back on the reins. With that light of a command, Gray Girl pulled up at the side of the street. He spoke without thinking. "If you handled your staff with half as much finesse as you do those reins, you might get more cooperation."

Something glinted in the deep-sea blue eyes lifting at him. A reflection of sunlight? A hint of life?

She raised one tidy, ebony eyebrow. "And whose feelings do you think I've hurt? Mr. Toombs' perhaps?"

Leave it to the woman to choose this moment to get clever. Royce scowled. "Aside from Toombs."

"Have I been terrifying your Sarah again?"

"You haven't crossed paths with her since our first morning at Hillhouse. At least not in my presence, which is nearly constant. And she's not mine."

Like a candle flame in a draft, the light in the cobalt eyes shimmered. "Have I been unreasonably hard on you, Mr. Devlin?"

He blinked and shifted on the thinly cushioned seat. He'd thought he'd made his comment in general. But she'd seen that he had not.

"I'm just not used to idling my time away," he grumbled.

"Even after months in Newgate?"

"Especially after months in that vermin-infested hole."

Megan sucked in a breath. She shouldn't have baited him. But, she'd come to welcome Royce Devlin's bouts of insolence as a diversion from her pain and drudgery.

She handed him a folded paper. "Give this to the tailor. I won't have you carrying me about in bedraggled shirtsleeves."

"There's nothing wrong with my shirt," he muttered, ducking out from under the phaeton hood and dropping to the ground.

The buggy sprang back from his sudden departure. Hanging onto the armrest, Megan watched her bondsman stride into the shop. He was right, at least about the shirt. There was nothing wrong with it. But a couple duplicates would be prudent. And he needed breeches. There weren't a spare pair in all of Hillhouse that fit his long legs and muscular thighs.

***

From the multi paned window front, rectangles of afternoon sunlight slanted across bolts of fabric, cutting table, and a bony, little man bent upon a stool with needle and thread in hand. The tailor glanced up from his sewing, his speech as clipped and precise as the tiny stitches he took. "Help you?"

"I'm in need of a new suit of clothes," Royce said.

The craftsman's bespectacled, practiced eyes swept over Royce, automatically calculating the breadth and cut of the customer in front of him. "I can see that. How you payin'?"

Royce handed him Megan McCall's note. The tailor read it, peered over the rim of his spectacles out the shop window, and raised an eyebrow. "Soon as I finish these last stitches, I'll measure you."

Royce rocked back on his heels. At the rear of the shallow room, a female clerk spread a bolt of fabric to the inspection of a buxom matron and a woman with skin so fair and hair so dark Royce caught himself glancing out front to make sure Megan McCall hadn't miraculously strolled into the shop on her own.

Of course the woman in the shop wasn't, couldn't be her. This woman wore a gown not of black but turquoise, its skirt belling broadly over wide pannier hoops from her pinched waist. And she stood, upright, on her own two feet.

The turquoise clad female looked up and caught him staring. Royce feigned interest in a nearby bolt of fabric.

"Perhaps if I saw the cloth in better light," puckered the matronly customer; and the rustle of satin crackled in his ears, the scent of lavender invaded his nostrils, and a swirl of turquoise filled his line of vision.

"Do I know you?" asked a female voice with a coy lilt.

"Excuse my rudeness. I hadn't meant to stare. But -- " Royce glanced up, getting his first up-close look of the powdered face and thin lips rouged into the lusher shape of Megan McCall's mouth.

"But, what?" prodded the woman with the same blue-black hair as his mistress, though hers hung in fat curls to her shoulders.

"But, you reminded me of someone else."

A painted eyebrow edged up from a muddy blue eye. "A woman here in Virginia? In Norfolk?"

In spite of the obvious differences, the woman in turquoise bore an uncanny likeness to the Mistress of Hillhouse. If she was local, and he suspected she was, she'd know which woman her sharper features didn't quite match up to. Given the hard edge in her voice that coyness didn't completely mask, he suspected she wouldn't like being compared to Megan McCall.

He inclined his head in a courtly manner. "Forgive me if I offended, madame. She's no one of importance. Indeed, next to you she would pale by comparison."

Both painted eyebrows popped up onto her narrow forehead. Through eyes that slanted upward at their outer edges like Megan McCall's, she eyed him from head to toe. "You appear to be a traveling man."

"I've come from a great distance."

Her heavily rouged lips curled up at one corner. "Then this woman I remind you of, she's from another place?"

The hair at the nape of Royce's neck bristled. He'd learned long ago to be wary of urgent people and, on the topic of whom he'd seen in her likeness, the woman standing in front of him was like a scrawny dog on a bone. Fortunately, the tailor held up his tape measure at that moment, beckoning Royce.

"Excuse me," he said, edging past the lady in turquoise.

The woman reached for his sleeve with her long fingers. But before she snagged him, the clerk at the front of the store gasped, "It's her carriage, isn't it, Cornelia Mae?"

Knowing exactly whose carriage the woman referred to, Royce winced. Though he didn't know why he should be alarmed. Gossip and petty jealousy abounded among the fairer sex.

The woman called Cornelia Mae gave him a curious look before joining the other women and turning her attention to the carriage outside the shop. Then, like a bullwhip, Cornelia Mae's tight voice cracked through the shop. "It's her carriage all right."

The tailor's tape shimmied down Royce's spine.

"I'm told," the over-painted look alike continued, "she was most precise when ordering it, insisted it be exactly like the other. Even the horse is as close to the original as one could get. A sister to the gelding killed, I hear."

The carriage crash that had killed Megan McCall's husband suddenly took on an added sinister slant for Royce.

The buxom woman snorted. "Doesn't that take all."

"I've heard that she's near everyday down at the docks," prattled the clerk.

"So she's that well recuperated, is she?" muttered the turquoise-clad Cornelia Mae.

"Must be," murmured the clerk, gawking openly.

As the tailor wrapped his tape around Royce's thigh, Cornelia Mae's sharp chin swung in his direction. "Had you heard, she's bought herself a convict indenture?"

"That's not allowed," sputtered the clerk. "Not here in Virginia."

"But it is in Maryland," mewed the look alike, her muddy gaze locking on Royce's eyes, "where she bought him."

"The gall," huffed the matron. "Bringing one of them here!"

"The gall of it," mimicked the clerk.

"I really ought to go out and pay my respects," purred Cornelia Mae, her overly- sugared tone jolting Royce more than the tailor's knuckle as the man stretched the tape up Royce's inseam. "It's been entirely too long since I've seen cousin Megan."

Cousin. The word ripped through the room at Royce. It explained the resemblance between the woman of the loosely curled raven hair and the one of tightly tucked up mane. But it didn't explain the challenging look in the muddy-blue eyes evaluating him nor the smirk stretching the thin lips.

***

Megan sat well back in her phaeton seat watching the street traffic. She saw, in the tentative looks from those in coaches and carriages, in the secretive glances of those walking that they thirsted for more of a display.

"Not today," she breathed. "The crippled widow isn't up to exhibiting herself yet."

"Good afternoon, cousin dearest."

Recognizing the voice, Megan silently cursed. Ready or not, the curtain had been drawn. She drew a deep breath, stiffened her spine, and leaned forward on her phaeton seat. "Cornelia Mae, what brings you to my buggy?"

"I was just in the shop there and noticed you out here, and I simply had to come out and say how nice it is to see you at last out of your sickbed."

"I've been out of it for some time," Megan parried.

"So Peyton has said," the cousin puckered. "He tells me everything about his visits to you."

In deference to Cornelia Mae's ill-concealed jealousy, Megan conceded. "Peyton has been a great help to me since his return to the colonies. I appreciate your sharing your husband's time."

Cornelia Mae's face scrunched into a simpering mask. "I'd have visited myself these past months, but Peyton just wouldn't have me risking any mishaps in my delicate condition. After all, look what happened to you."

The pain was too well practiced and moments such as this not yet rehearsed enough for Megan to hide the hurt. She blinked against the tears stinging the backs of her eyes.

Cornelia Mae pressed two, cotton-gloved fingers to her lips. "How very insensitive of me to have brought up that awful event. Do forgive me, cousin dearest."

"Don't I always?"

Cornelia Mae sniffed. "It's not my fault fate took from you what it did."

Like a broken nail ripping the scab from an old wound, pain gouged at Megan's soul.

"Now that you're mobile again," Cornelia Mae purred, "you simply must come by Lyttlehouse and see my son. He's the very image of his father."

"Then certainly I must get over to Lyttlehouse and see who that would be," Megan shot back.

That's when she noticed Royce Devlin standing outside the tailor shop, glaring at her. She flinched. He strode forward, stepping between her and Cornelia Mae, the tailor in tow.

Royce nudged the tailor ahead of himself toward the phaeton. "We've brought out the fabric choices for your approval."

The craftsman spread the bolts of fabric he carried. Megan McCall's sooty lashes dipped toward the fabric. Her small fingers crimped the edge of the cloth to be inspected.

Royce had been uneasy about the cousin leaving the shop, about the idea of his mistress facing such a woman alone. But, stepping out into the street and hearing Megan McCall respond to her cousin's invitation by flaying the woman's virtue reminded him how adeptly she'd handled Toombs, Tommy, and Mannie. He should have known no harpy could get the better of Hillhouse's princess.

The cousin sidled close to his side. "Do tell, sir, is this the woman you said pales in comparison to me?"

Like a sail hoisted on a merchantman whose crew too late has spotted the pirateer on their tail, Megan McCall's dark lashes came up. Her sea-blue eyes accused and her knuckles whitened as she crushed the fabric between her fingers. "This for the jacket," she muttered, "and the broadcloth for the breeches."

The tailor noted her choices and retreated into the safety of his shop. Royce contemplated joining the tailor, the clerk, and the buxom matron behind the storefront windows. But, Cornelia Mae's question had made him a full-fledged player in whatever game the cousins played. Without answering either woman's challenge, he climbed into the phaeton seat next to his mistress.

"Is he one of your new indentured servants, Megan?" mewed the cousin, stepping up to the phaeton's fender. "Is he the convict?"

Megan McCall's silent seething crackled through the air like heat lightning.

Cornelia Mae smiled, a lascivious eye languidly perusing his physique. "Dare I venture that his crime was not rape. Indeed, what woman would refuse so divinely handsome and well structured a man?"

"Certainly," hissed Megan, "not you, Corny."

Cornelia Mae glared past Royce at Megan. "I really have out grown that nickname."

He shouldn't have seated himself between the two women. He should have climbed into the phaeton from the far side and made his mistress slide over on the seat. Wrong. He should have separated these two scrapping females the minute the tailoring business had been finished.

Royce snatched up the reins and raised his hands to slap the gray into motion, but Megan's fingers pressed against the backs of his knuckles. "I don't see where you've outgrown any of your old ways, Cornelia."

The cousin glanced at Megan's hand on his, then looked him in the eye. "Do you mind so well in every respect?"

Royce frowned. Cornelia Mae's thin lips tightened. "I do hope so. What with the way things have been going for my cousin, I could well end up owning your indentureship."

"Contrary to popular gossip," growled Megan, "my businesses are not failing."

Cornelia Mae raised one of her painted eyebrows. "I hear Hillhouse's fields have yet to be tilled this season, that not a field hand remains to do the job. Is that simply malicious gossip, cousin dearest?"

Megan McCall's tiny fingers curled against his hand. "Hillhouse isn't my only business concern."

"Of course. You have your shipyard. Such a lady-like occupation."

The leather-clad fingertips scored his knuckles. "Living in luxury does not a lady make."

Cornelia Mae wrinkled her nose. "You're just green with envy because Peyton Lyttle, the most sought after bachelor and most successful planter in all the Tidewater, chose to marry me instead of you."

"Only after his proposals to me were rejected," shot back the Mistress of Hillhouse.

Then, at last, she lifted her hand from Royce's.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"So, I pale in comparison to my cousin, do I?"

Royce flinched. He'd been waiting since they'd driven out of sight of the tailor's shop for her to react. He'd waited as the high-stepping gray trotted them along the river road away from Norfolk. He'd waited as the dusty fields ruined by tobacco marked the beginning of Hillhouse land. But she'd said nothing, until now...until the bluff road had come into sight.

"Do I?" she demanded.

He slumped forward on the bench seat, his elbows on his thighs and the reins loose in his hands. "Not really."

"But you did say it."

"She caught me staring at her." He shrugged. "So, I told her she reminded me of someone."

"And she wanted to know who. So you told her it was me."

"No. I flattered her."

"Oh, you more than flattered her," muttered Megan McCall.

Royce eyed the woman who'd turned down not one but multiple marriage proposals from his singular worst enemy. "Look, the two of you are cousins. There is a resemblance. So don't blame me for your petty jealousy."

"Jealousy?" She snorted. "I've no reason to be jealous of Cornelia Mae."

He hadn't meant to glance at her legs. But he did.

She slammed her fists against her thighs and howled, "I wasn't always like this!"

He shifted on the seat. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean -- "

"I was pursued, and not just for the inheritance of Hillhouse and all that came with it! There were plenty of men who pawed and lusted after me!"

"Pawed and lusted?" He gave her a dubious look.

Which she misread. "Put aside any thoughts you have of me and my cousin competing on so coarse a level, Mr. Devlin."

"I wasn't -- "

"Cornelia Mae's the only harlot in this family."

"I didn't think you -- "

"And you just better never think it!"

"I'd better not think it?"

She folded her slim arms across her diminutive breasts and squared her slight shoulders. "I bet you'd relish Corny with her broad hips rolling beneath yours as your mistress."

"Is that a challenge?"

"It's whatever you wish to make of it."

He eyed her taut profile with its defiantly upturned nose and stubbornly jutting chin. Widow or not, he doubted she understood the stakes in the kind of game her cousin played.

"Be very careful what you invite," he cautioned. "You may not like what you get."

She glared at him through her storm-tossed, sea-blue eyes. "Don't be crude with me, Mr. Devlin."

Royce snorted. "How very safe and smug you must feel, hidden now as you are behind your widow's rags, having fulfilled your marital obligation, knowing you need never again oblige."

"Need never again oblige?"

There was a brittle edge to her voice that made him look deep into the fathomless pupils and see the raw loss in her soul. Just what was it that she'd lost?

The image of Peyton Lyttle in Hillhouse's library kissing her brow loomed behind Royce's eyes. Had Megan McCall felt Lyttle's lips linger against her brow? Had she closed her eyes as the planter had his, blocking out everything but that singular contact? Was the loss that plagued her that of the man Royce most despised?

"Dare I venture Peyton Lyttle is the one man by whom you wish to be rutted?"

Color flushed Megan McCall's cheeks. She tore the reins from Royce's hands. "Peyton has never been anything less than a gentleman with me."

Okay, so she didn't know all the carnal details of what she longed for. He could take her flawless face in his hands and kiss her ripe, little mouth until she understood what she tempted, until he convinced her she was more than a pair of useless legs. But he suspected it wasn't his mouth she would welcome against hers.

"Strip away your Peyton's stylish gentlemanly garments," Royce growled, "and you have a man like any other."

She slapped the reins against the filly's haunches. Gray Girl lunged onto the Bluff Road.

Royce tipped his face close to his mistress' ear, his voice low. "And a man's thoughts I do understand, no matter in what attire he cloaks himself."

She glared at him. "Is that a warning, Mr. Devlin? Need I protect myself against you?"

He sat back and folded his arms across his own chest. "Your ego exceeds you, madam. I merely offer my congratulations that you are yet safe from Peyton Lyttle's rutting desires, being that he is wed now that you are again available."

The budding lips he'd have taken great pleasure in corrupting flattened to a thin line. Megan McCall cracked the long carriage whip in the air. The black tips of Gray Girl's ears swiveled and the filly picked up her pace, jarring the carriage wheels out of the ruts worn into the rocky road.

"Pull her back," Royce ordered flatly, realizing they'd crested the rise.

But Megan McCall's deft fingers loosened more on the reins.

He braced his feet against the floorboards and snarled, "Is it your habit to settle arguments with mad dashes across a treacherous bluff?"

She glanced sideways at him, the whites of her eyes like whitecaps on a stormy sea.

"Or do you save this strategy only for the men in your life?"

She cracked the whip again. The phaeton lurched forward and careened over the summit of the bluff. Royce grabbed the armrest with one hand and the edge of the seat with the other as the buggy hurtled toward the bend where one man had already died.

"What sin did Peter Tallmadge commit against you that he deserved to die for it? Was it the Robertson scandal? An abusive use of slave women? Another woman?"

Once more, she rent the air with her whip.

"How many more men," Royce howled, "do you intend to drive off this bluff out of spite?"

She swung the whip handle at his head. Royce ripped the lash from her and flung it aside. She reached for the pistol beneath the seat cushion. He yanked her against his chest, pinning her arms and grappling the reins from her hands.

"Let go of me," she shrieked.

He gripped her tighter and hauled back on the reins. The filly fought the pressure of the bit as fiercely as Megan McCall struggled against the grip of his arm. Damned but didn't her squirming betray the fact that a pair of firm breasts heaved beneath her mourning gown.

Gritting his teeth, Royce held his wriggling mistress out of reach of her pistol and braced the filly round the bend in the road. Being a near straight path to the plantation house, he let the horse have her head. But he didn't loosen his hold on Megan McCall. Not as the filly slowed past the family burial plots. Not even as she, with heaving sides, halted out of habit at Hillhouse's back door.

Royce dragged his mistress from the phaeton seat and slung her over his shoulder. She cursed him and pummeled his back with her fists. He carried her through the hall into the library and dumped her unceremoniously onto the settee.

"I'll kill you!" she roared.

He stepped back out of her reach. "You very nearly did."

She snatched up a vase from the tea table and hurled it at him. He ducked toward the doorway. The container shattered against the wall behind him.

"Don't you walk away from me!" she screeched. "Don't you dare walk away from me!"

He paused in the doorway and looked at her, her loose gown askew, exposing an edge of white petticoat. One lock of her dark hair dripped down the side of her neck. "There isn't a thing you can do at the moment to stop me. You think about that."

And then he left.

***

"Walk that horse cool," growled Royce as he handed the gray's lead off to the stableboy and stormed into the stables, sending the dust pile in front of the boy's broom scattering.

Royce continued down the aisle between the empty stalls, not stopping until he reached the gaping, rear entryway. Her red stallion charged along the split-rail fence, his nostrils flared, the whites of his eyes rolling. When the animal came to the juncture of the fences, he reared and wheeled.

"I know just how you feel," Royce muttered, his shoulders hunched, his hands balled into fists at his sides.

Behind him sounded the shuffling gait and velvety voice of the old butler. "An animal like that one needs to be used, just like a good man needs to know his use."

Royce wheeled around. Jep's knotted hands held a harness and oiled rag. Royce scowled. "Did she run out of things for you to do in the house?"

"Ain't like that, Mista Royce."

Royce strode past Jep with long, angry strides. All coiled muscle and unleashed rage, he stopped where the front of the stables faced the plantation house.

"Fact of the matter is," Jep said, toddling stiffly up to his elbow, "she don't give me near enough to keep me busy."

"You don't belong out here oiling harnesses." He eyed the stooped house servant at his side. "Or is it customary with her to work all her help in jobs contrary to their talents?"

"Miz Megan don't send me out to work in the stables."

Royce jerked his chin toward James the stableboy. "Next she'll have him kneading bread dough in the kitchen or cinching up her corsets in her bedchamber and Jaisy out here dragging an over-heated horse up and down the driveway."

Jep hung up the harness he'd been working on, draped the oiled cloth over one of the stall partitions, and lifted his polished face at Royce. "Maybe you needs some walkin' cool, too."

Royce spun on his heels, took two steps, turned and jabbed an accusing finger toward Hillhouse. "She's bloody crazy, racing across that bluff the way she does. Is she trying to kill me or herself?"

Bending slowly, Jep dragged up the broom handle James had dropped. "No one wantin' to die would fight hard as she does to live."

"Fight? To live? How? Since when?"

Jep's mouth opened. Royce cut him off. "Was she driving the carriage the night her husband died?"

Jep leaned against the broom handle and shrugged. "Nobody know but Miz Megan."

"Nobody alive, that is," Royce snarled. "There are those who say she drove Peter Tallmadge off that bluff on purpose."

The creases in Jep's brow deepened. "Miz Megan don't kill nobody on purpose, not that night nor any other."

"How do you know?" Royce demanded, hoping above all hope that Jep had a definitive answer for him.

Profound sadness dragged across the old man's features. "I just know."

Royce spun away from Jep. "She can go breaking her own neck if she pleases. But I'll be damned if I let her take me with her."

"She ain't after killing nobody."

Royce paced the length of the stable, back and forth, back and forth, muttering, "Damned spoiled plantation brat."

"She ain't -- "

"The woman belongs in Bedlam."

"She sane as you or me."

"Which isn't saying much for either of us." The soles of Royce's shoes ground blades of straw into the packed dirt floor as he pivoted toward the old man. "How do we escape this madness, Jep?"

"Ain't no need to run away, Mista Royce."

"Damn it, I'm not talking about running. I'm talking about escaping a mad woman's insanity."

"Miz Megan no mad woman."

Frustrated, Royce kicked a wooden bucket. The unfortunate pail smacked the back wall of a stall and bounced back at him.

"I know it don't show these days, but Miz Megan got a good heart."

Royce swiped the pail from his path with the side of his foot. "Good heart? She's got a house servant laboring in the stables, slices the ear off her Master Shipwright, and drives her husband to his death! If that's a good hearted woman, then save me from all of womankind."

"She don't do none of those things."

Royce slammed his palm against one of the stall supports. "She can drive herself off that bluff and straight to hell for all I care. But she's not taking me with her!"

"Miz Megan's not trying to kill herself."

He hit the post again. "The hell she isn't. You weren't riding with her. You didn't see the way she cracked her whip."

"I seen her all broke up after the accident."

Royce clenched his fists, aching to let them fly.

"She don't want death now no more than she did the night of the accident."

Royce spun away from Jep, mayhem crackling from his frayed nerves.

"She ain't after death," Jep pleaded. "I know."

Knuckles itching for release, he bent for the hapless pail.

The blow to his backside sent Royce sprawling belly down in the aisle. Spinning onto his stinging seat, he gaped up at Jep.

The old man settled the bristle end of his broom back to the floor, folded his leathery hands over the end of its handle, leaned his gray stubbled chin against a knotted knuckle, and smiled down on Royce in his gentle way. "Now's that I got your attention, Mista Royce, let me tell you how I know Miz Megan ain't going about the task of getting herself killed."

***

The pillow Megan fired after the vase caught the tea set on the side table and sent it clattering to the floor. Jaisy must have heard the first crash because she was already bursting through the door from the butler's pantry.

"Miss Megawn! What dat man do to you?"

"Get out," Megan shrieked.

Jaisy moved toward her, arms outstretched. "But -- "

"Just go. Go!"

Jaisy backed out of the room. Megan flung one last pillow across the room and slumped back on the settee. Royce Devlin was right. Without his arms, his legs, she was immobilized, helpless, at the mercy of the world.

And she was tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of hurting. Tired of being dependent.

If Peyton walked in at that moment with another of his offers to buy Hillhouse and all its properties, she might just accept. She hadn't the energy to resist any longer.

Megan's gaze homed on the model of The Imperia atop the fireplace mantel, her father's flagship named for the love of his life, her mother. He'd sailed The Imperia out of Norfolk harbor for the Caribbean nearly two years ago, out of hers and her mother's lives. Where was the fire her father's blood lent hers now? Maybe a father's blood didn't flow as pure through a daughter's veins as a son's, after all. Maybe she was as crazy as those who whispered behind her back said she was.

Maybe she should admit she'd just lost one too many battles.

She let her mind slip aimlessly back to when The Imperia didn't return to Norfolk when expected. All those with interests worried, for a storm had battered the seas south of them the past week. More weeks passed. Word came up from the Carolinas of shipwreck debris littering their shores. On the first day of the sixth week after The Imperia had failed to return, Peter Tallmadge approached Shea McCall's widow and daughter.

"Genteel ladies that the two of you are," he'd bashfully recited, "you'll be in need of a man's strong hand to guide and protect. I'd be most honored to be that man as Miss Megan's husband."

But, in spite of her advancing eighteen years of age and the threat of spinsterhood hanging over her, Megan yet aspired for a man she would fall in love with as had her mother with Shea McCall. Only the pressure of her mother's fingers against the back of her hand prevented Megan from declining Peter Tallmadge's offer on the spot.

"What Peter says is true," her mother had anxiously attempted to persuade after the boy had left. "We are genteel women. We need a man's protection and guidance."

"We've no proof father is lost," Megan had argued. "He could yet return."

It remained the only argument to persuade Imperia McCall that her husband might after all not be lost at sea. She as much as the daughter wanted to believe.

But the next day, Peyton Lyttle visited. When he'd gone, Shea McCall's bride of twenty years climbed the stairs of Hillhouse to her bed. To her daughter's queries she replied numbly, "We cannot change what has passed and we are left to live with what is done."

"Of what do you speak, Mother? Has Peyton brought news of father?"

But Imperia Hill McCall would not answer and, seeing the stricken look upon her mother's gentle features, Megan thought the worst. "He's brought proof that father's dead, hasn't he?"

Anguish washed Imperia McCall's face. She closed her eyes. Her lips parted with painful slowness. "He brought a proposal of his own."

Distraught by her mother's grief, Megan relented. "If it is what you wish, Mother, I'll accept Peyton's proposal."

Her mother had looked at her with such astonishment, that Megan had amended, "Or Peter's. Whichever you feel is best."

"Your father had good reason to refuse Peyton's request for your hand in marriage."

"He refused Peyton because I said I didn't love him."

Imperia McCall pressed her fingertips against her daughter's lips and, with more energy than she would ever again muster, rasped, "It is Peter's proposal you must accept."

Thus, on the third day of the sixth week of Shea McCall's failure to return, his daughter accepted the marriage proposal of a boy. And the woman after whom Shea McCall had named his flagship never left her bed alive again.

Megan's thoughts tripped ahead to the night on the bluff and stumbled past the act that had plummeted her into pain even more despairing than the loss of her parents. Barely a week had passed when the creditors began visiting Hillhouse.

"So sorry to intrude on you in your time of grief, Mrs. Tallmadge, but there's this matter of feed bills that Mr. Tallmadge overlooked."

"Forgive my intrusion at so grievous a time, Mrs. Tallmadge, but who'll be seeing to paying out the back wages yet owed that Mr. Tallmadge never settled?"

"My sympathies, Mrs. Tallmadge, but what about Mr. Tallmadge's gambling debts?"

She'd called in the family solicitor. He'd assured her not to worry herself over these matters. "All will be taken care of."

So she succumbed, wavering between the pains of body and heart and the numbing of the doctor's anodynes. She could not say how long she'd lain in her bed falling in and out of her comatose state when, during a rare lucid moment, she'd heard the solicitor. "I can't much longer hold off the creditors."

"She is hanging on better than I anticipated," muttered the doctor. "But it can't be much longer."

"Mercifully soon, I hope," the lawyer had responded. "I can't settle up the estate until she's gone."

From that moment on, there'd been no more of the doctor's bitter tasting brew. By week's end, no more doctor. She summoned the solicitor to her bedside. Judging by the look on his face when he saw her propped up on pillows, he'd been expecting deathbed instructions.

She took possession of the records he'd been ordered to bring and told him to come back the following day. When he returned, it was to a woman who knew every detail of her family's businesses, every sad, jeopardized detail.

There was barely enough tobacco harvested to cover Hillhouse's taxes. And that crop now sat in a dockyard warehouse. They'd be lucky if it hadn't rotted in the dampness or been chewed up by rats, lucky if the king's agent would yet accept it. No work was being done on the plantation, the overseer having quit a week after the crash. Peter's gaming debts were horrendous. The house lacked cash to pay its accumulating daily bills. And Shea McCall's shipbuilding yard lay more fallow than the ruined fields of Hillhouse Plantation.

She'd learned too late why her young husband had refused to talk business with her. She'd learned in the most brutal of manners why he'd hovered over her at parties and kept her increasingly apart from Tidewater society as the months passed. She'd learned the hard way not to trust any gentleman.

Grief had blinded Megan. Brutal reality had given her sight into a seamy side of life she hadn't known existed. But failure threatened her with the harshest views of all. Still, Megan couldn't muster the energy for one more good fight.

A shadow crossed the bank of windows beyond the writing table. She looked up and caught a flash of blousing, white shirt and sun-glazed, auburn hair. But her gaze locked on Jaisy's and Dunn's son walking the gray harness horse. Back-and-forth, back-and- forth he led the filly. Behind the indifference, she sensed more than felt the twinge. Guilt? Despair? Hope?

Surely not hope. Certainly she was too weary for hope. She was too weary even to glance over her shoulder at the opening library door that sent a breeze across her shoulders, at the bronze god of a man stepping into the room.

"What brings you back?" she asked.

"I shouldn't have left you as I did," he said, closing the door quietly behind himself.

"You're not the first to have abandoned me," she recited tonelessly, looking up at him dully as he stepped into her line of vision. "Nor shall you be the last."

A frown pulled at his sensual mouth and lines crinkled at the corners of his somber eyes. Megan's protective shroud of apathy cracked. Fearing what she might reveal should she look too long into the rusty eyes, she turned her face away, muttering, "I don't need your pity, Mr. Devlin."

"Good, because that's not what I came back to offer you," he fired back.

The deep breath Royce Devlin drew pulled Megan's gaze up his bronze heights. But it was the words that came out on his expelled breath that made her heart stutter.

"I think I can help you walk again."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Hope fanned through Megan like a flash fire, burning off the last of her indifference. But a spasm of pain twisted up her leg, reminding her of the hard, harsh facts, steeling her against disappointment, and restoring the edge to her tongue.

"You have a cruel streak in you, Mr. Devlin. The doctor said I would never walk again."

"Be that the same doctor who also said your broken bones would never heal, that the flesh they tore would become gangrenous, that better the legs be amputated sooner than later?"

Beyond Royce Devlin's elbow, beyond the windowpanes, Jep toddled from barn to house. "That old man talks too much," she murmured.

"He'll do anything to ease the way for you. He's devoted to you."

"I know whom I can trust, Mr. Devlin," she snapped.

Neither spoke for a long moment, russet eyes meeting the scrutiny of those sea- blue. When she finally spoke, her tone almost accused. "What do you know about making my legs work?"

He lowered himself onto the edge of the wingback chair opposite her, all coiled muscle. "I know the strength in your legs needs to be rebuilt."

She snorted. "Tell me something I don't already know."

"The tightness and the cramps have to be stretched out of them first. They seize up, don't they?"

She stilled her fist against her thigh. The man was a pirate, a seafaring thief. Was he a charlatan also? He could have seen her digging her knuckles into her thigh in an attempt to ease the pain. He could have guessed.

He could have known someone else like her.

Plumbing the depths of his eyes, she probed for more proof he wasn't just another gentleman with no more than his own gain in mind. "How do you know what to do with my legs?"

A shadow rustled across the eyes the color of dry leaves. "Someone close to me had injuries similar to yours."

Someone close to him? "And?"

Royce Devlin's brow puckered. "A method was devised to restore the strength to the injured limbs."

The injured limbs? Not his limbs or hers. Did he hide the gender of that someone close to him on purpose?

"You know this method?" she asked.

He glanced away. "I took my turn at manipulating the legs."

There it was again, the legs. He was hiding something. She'd stake her life on it. Maybe she was.

"And years later," he continued, his gaze coming back to her, "when I was first mate to a captain whose arm had withered from lack of use after a bad break, I used the method on him. He regained much use of the limb."

"But not all," she probed, not missing the fact that Royce had no trouble referring to the captain as he, wondering if that meant the person whose legs he'd learned the exercises on had been female.

Not that the sex of the first cripple he'd repaired should matter to her. Megan cared only whether or not Royce Devlin could heal her. Right?

"How much you're able to recover," Royce said, breaking into her thoughts before the niggling question eclipsed the issue at hand, "depends upon how severely your legs are damaged."

Megan grunted. How damaged was she? No one knew but her how soul deep the destruction went, how pitifully small a step restoring her legs would be toward repairing the total damage.

Then there was Royce Devlin's opinion of her. He'd made it clear that he considered her guilty of no less than murder and attempted suicide. She didn't believe he turned Good Samaritan toward her just because Jep had imparted the facts of her broken legs. Unless Jep had detailed more for him.

She watched Royce Devlin closely. "Why would you waste your time helping a woman you believe to be self-destructive?"

Something akin to pity pulsed from the rusty eyes and etched lines around his taut lips. "I don't believe that a woman about to deliver a healthy child into the world would do herself harm."

No one had dared speak of the baby, not as it lay blue between her fractured legs, not as her life's blood drained from her womb and her wounds. But she'd seen her son limp and lifeless, the most innocent victim of hers and Peter's foibles. Megan flinched.

"I'm sorry," Royce Devlin said.

"Don't." Her voice cracked from her restricted throat and she held up her hand as though she could hold back his pity. "Save your words of sympathy. I don't want to hear them."

What I want is for this conversation not to be taking place. I want that night on the bluff never to have happened. I want the doctor never to have said I wouldn't walk nor bear more babes.

She stared across the room, through the bank of windows at James leading Gray Girl back and forth. Why should she even care that Royce Devlin might be able to help her walk again? What future did a barren, childless widow have? Why yet fight?

Her gaze tracked to the fireplace mantel where the model of her father's flagship perched in full glory. Shea McCall had never let down the people who depended upon him. Those were the values with which he'd raised his daughter. If for no other reason than to ensure the future of the boy walking her horse cool, to make sure his sister and mother weren't separated, and to guarantee old Jep a place to live out his final years, she would fight. She would accept Royce Devlin's offer.

Royce watched Megan McCall's features twist with memory, crease into despair, then finally smooth with renewed purpose. He'd done her a grave injustice in accusing her of petty jealousy. He'd misjudged her by a mile in believing her capable of murder or worse. Jep had explained how Dunn had been disfigured while she'd lain unconscious and unable to protect him as he'd protected her against the doctor's saws.

Royce had also underestimated her will to survive and overestimated her toughness. Almost tenderly, he asked, "Do we start the exercises tomorrow?"

She shook her head.

"But -- "

"We start now," she commanded in a steady voice.

"Now? Here?"

She looked him in the eye. "Is there any reason to wait?"

He'd noticed how she dug her fist into her leg, noticed now how her tiny, balled-up hand rocked against her thigh. Her pain and her weariness reflected in the depths of her sea-blue eyes. Maybe he hadn't overestimated her toughness, after all.

"If you're up to it, now is just fine," he answered, easing to one knee in front of her where he snagged her foot and slipped off her shoe.

She started and demanded, "What are you doing?"

He looked up past the volumes of black skirt she flattened over her knees. "I'm taking a look at what I've got to work with."

"Must you see my legs to determine that?"

"I'll be doing a sight more than looking at your legs," he answered, feeling the tension in the arch of her foot against his palm. "I'll need to handle them."

"I won't have to bare my legs to your touch, will I?"

Her chin swept the air in that imperious arc he'd gotten used to seeing. Damn the woman and her modesty. Didn't she inherit any passion from that Irish father of hers?

With a sigh, he answered, "Part of the method involves applying hot compresses to your limbs."

"Can't that be done through the stockings?"

He closed his fingers around her slim little ankle. "Do I so threaten your sense of modesty?"

She tried to jerk her leg free. "Must you be so intimate?"

He scowled. "I'll need to get far more intimate than this to do the job properly. Are you sure you're up to this, Princess?"

Princess? Megan gaped into the eyes the color of molten copper. Blast the bloody pirate, he thought she objected to his mauling out of a sense of propriety. What a joke he'd make of her modesty if he knew the real reason she was loathe to bare her legs.

"It's not like I've never seen a lady's bare leg before," he contended, his palm warm against the arch of her foot, so wonderfully warm.

You've seen none like mine.

"It's not like no man has ever seen your legs. You were married."

She closed her eyes over the memory of her brief marriage and even briefer deflowering. She closed her eyes tight on the fact that she would remain a virgin to limitless passion till her dying day before she exposed her marred legs to the scrutiny of any man, least of all a pirate who'd no doubt seen more than his share of ladies' legs.

"Okay, Princess," Royce Devlin murmured in that deep, rich voice of his.

"The stockings can stay."

***

"This is useless." Royce stepped back from the daybed and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of one rolled up sleeve.

Megan McCall's eyelids fluttered halfway open, her words slurring off her tongue. "What's useless?"

He glanced at the half empty glass of whiskey on the stool within her easy reach. "It's useless working with you when you're in a stupor."

That brought her up on her elbows. "I'm not drunk."

"It only for de pain," Jaisy insisted from the hearth where she was about to add another log to the fire beneath a pot of scalding water and compress rags.

He frowned at the servant who'd guarded her mistress' virtue through a week of compresses, massages, and kneaded muscles. "Don't stoke that fire yet."

He glared at his semi-prone mistress on the daybed. "The fact is, madam, we've been at this for more than a week with little or no progress." And only one trip in all that time to the shipyards. A lot of good I'm doing myself.

"We aren't stopping. I won't allow it."

He eyed the beads of sweat on her brow and upper lip. Although frustrated and angry, he still wanted to wipe them away. Why did he so badly want to ease the haunted plea in her fever-filled eyes?

Fever? Maybe she was merely as over-heated as he was.

With the backs of his fingers he tested the temperature of her brow. She flinched and, for an instant, a shadow he couldn't read crossed the cobalt eyes. Then, she gasped and grabbed at her left leg.

"Leg cramp?" he asked.

She nodded.

He grabbed her foot and pushed back on her toes, stretching the muscles spasming down the back of her leg. "Pinch your lower lip," he commanded.

She looked at him, puzzled, pained, immobilized. He caught the bud of her bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed gently.

The pain in her calf eased. Or she forgot about it. Megan didn't know which. She knew only that, whether his knuckles brushed her brow or his fingertips closed on her lower lip, Royce Devlin's touch unsettled her. All week it had unsettled her...and he had touched her in far more intimate places than her brow and lip.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" she asked when he let go of her lip.

"In the far east."

He still held her foot in one hand, his palm warm, comfortable against her instep. Or maybe the heat radiating into her toes was from the liquor. He was right. She drank too much.

But, she needed the whiskey. The pain had been more than she'd expected and the intimacy of his touch almost unbearable. She blinked, shutting out the probing gaze of the rusty eyes, shutting out the sight of auburn locks loosed from a queue and curling about well balanced ears. She couldn't afford to delude herself with the charms of any gentleman, least of all those of a thieving pirate.

"Is that better?"

His deep voice ruffled her nerve endings and warred with her will. She fought the sensations of his palm pressed against her instep and his fingers curling over her toes. She nodded.

"Good. Then we're done for the day."

That quickly, the tender voice and gentle hands withdrew. The air, though sultry even for late May, cooled her deserted instep and chilled her abandoned toes. What else did she expect from a thief, a pirate...a gentleman?

Ire shot through Megan. She raised her chin and said in her most authoritative voice, "We're through when I say we are."

"You're exhausted."

"Says who, you?" she fired back at him.

Bracing his hands against the daybed frame to either side of her head, he leaned close, so close that all she could see were his lips. They were generous, smooth and ruddy. Kissable.

They parted and words spilled from them. "So say the cramps twisting up your legs. So say your flushed cheeks. So say the dull ache I see in your eyes."

She could tell him the ache in her eyes had nothing to do with muscle spasms. She wouldn't be lying. She blinked. "If you haven't the stamina to keep up with me, Mr. Devlin, Jaisy has observed enough to continue the exercising."

He straightened, towering over her. "You're a stubborn woman, Megan McCall."

The sound of her name off his lusty lips ebbed through her like a flood tide. What folly had made her buy the papers of a handsome rogue? What twist of fate had brought to her so able bodied a man? What error in judgement enabled her to allow him to handle her, speak to her, and look upon her with more intimacy than any man before him had?

"I am a woman determined to regain the use of her legs."

"Which you'll never do if you keep overworking them."

"I'm not overworking."

"How can you tell? You dull your senses to everything with a steady flow of whiskey?"

"If that were true -- " I wouldn't have this craving for your hands on my foot. She almost didn't catch the words in her throat.

"Is the princess of the plantation having second thoughts?"

"I'm no princess."

"And I'm no slave. You and Jaisy can do what you want. I've had enough."

But I haven't, she wanted to cry out after his receding back. "Not near enough," she murmured.

"What dat you say, Miss Megawn?"

"I said, we don't need his help. Get on with it, Jaisy."

***

Royce tossed and turned until the bedding tangled hopelessly around his legs. He kicked off the sheets and fell back on the mattress. A man with less ego would have found the third floor bedchamber with a full-size bed and horse-hair stuffed mattress most pleasant, even if there wasn't a breeze to be caught by the open, dormered window.

But he had ego. Worse, he'd tasted freedom and he wanted his back.

"Only weeks in the God forsaken colonies and I'm no better off than if I was yet in Newgate. Worse even."

He stared at the moonlit plaster ceiling over his head, its whitewash a stark contrast to the stones of a prison cell. Okay, so he wasn't worse off. But, he hadn't made his situation any better by volunteering to get a demanding plantation princess back on her feet. She'd sunk her teeth into the exercises like a pit bull did the throat of an adversary, working to exhaustion twice a day, every day. And they'd made only one trip in the past week to the shipyards. How was he going to run into old acquaintances stuck on some blasted plantation?

"Bloody woman's as obsessed with the exercising as she is with driving that damned bluff road like a maniac."

Behind his eyes loomed the image of her small, gloved fingers curled around the reins as she steered the carriage along that infamous trail toward the distant horizon. Jep hadn't given him any inkling to what drove their mistress to follow the very path where she'd nearly perished, to why she raced its tricky track like a woman possessed. Toombs, though, had.

But to believe she was insane, that she'd driven her husband to his death...If only he had some idea why she was hell-bent on taking the bluff road home all the time. They never rode it to town. Just toward home...as Jep had described her and Peter Tallmadge doing that fateful afternoon one of them failed to negotiate that last, lethal turn.

There had to be a reason she kept driving that road. Damned if he knew what it could be, though. At least he could understand her fixation on regaining the use of her legs. He personally knew what it was to be trapped.

Therein lay his dilemma. He shouldn't have let the old man's story touch his heart. He shouldn't have let the frailty of her body cloud his mind.

He shouldn't be contemplating what secrets hid beneath the mourning weeds of a woman with a will of iron and soul of steel.

Royce pulled himself upright on the bed, his bare arms draping his up-drawn, naked knees, his exposed sex heavy against the mattress. He muttered into the airless night. "Why in God's name is this woman affecting me in this way?"

The answer is in her eyes.

Royce scoffed, impatient with mind games. He'd played enough of them in Newgate to keep his sanity. Or lose it.

"I'll become as addle-brained as the Princess of Hillhouse if I keep talking to myself."

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he stepped into the luminous light of a full moon shafting through the dormered window. He closed his hand over the back of the chair that sat beside the bed and rubbed his palm against the well-worn fabric of the breeches hanging there.

They were his sole pair. But not for long. Soon he'd have new pants to wear. Shirts and a jacket too. Then he'd owe Megan McCall more. She'd charge their cost off to him. That's how this bondsman business worked. That's how a man could wind up owing his life away.

The humidity of the night hung on Royce like a second skin. He had to get out of this room, this house, this bond. Snagging the pants off the chair, he stepped into them. He'd barely tugged them over his hips when a scream rent the still air, a scream that turned the sheen of humidity blanketing him cold and scattered the hot blood throbbing in his groin.

He bolted into the hall where the wailing echoed up the stairwell at him and charged down the stairs. A moan led him to Megan McCall's bedchamber door. He hesitated on the hall side of that closed door. Then a shriek brought him crashing into her room.

Jaisy was kneeling on the bed pressing the rim of a glass to the lips of her thrashing mistress. "Drink, Miss Megawn. It will ease de pain."

Royce snatched the glass from Jaisy's hand and slammed it down on the nightstand. "Numb her into unconsciousness is all that swill will do! Where's she hurting?"

Jaisy gathered her mistress into her arms, hugging Megan's face against her bosom, muffling her cries. Ignoring the glare of her cat-like eyes, Royce tore the tangled sheets off of Megan's legs. Moonlight shafted across the ever-present stockings and the white nightgown twisted about her thighs.

Jaisy's fingers clamped over his forearm. "She wearing only her nightclothes."

"By all means, let us not be improper," he mocked, frowning at the legs bent into impossible angles by months of disuse and a week of over-use.

Tossing off Jaisy's hand, Royce climbed onto the bed, straddled his mistress' nearest leg and began kneading its muscles. "If you really want to help her, start massaging that other leg before the cramping snaps a bone."

"Snaps a bone?"

"That's what over-exercising her and pouring that swill down her throat is about to do."

Jaisy stopped arguing. Laying her mistress's head on pillows that had been tortured into rumpled lumps, Jaisy went to work beside Royce. For a woman whose husband's ear had been severed as punishment for trying to run away, the honey-hued woman exhibited an unnatural devotion to the very mistress who must have ordered the deed done.

The two of them worked for the better part of an hour, easing the cramps from their mistress' muscles, smoothing the tension from her tendons. Sweat glistened on Jaisy's brow. The sheen of his own labor rose at the back of his neck and across his shoulders. It trickled down his sides and prickled the backs of his arms.

Sweat soaked Megan McCall's nightrail, plastering its thin cloth across her breasts. He tried not to notice how her nipples puckered the damp fabric. He tried not to notice how the pliant fabric molded to each rise and gully, how it draped the swell of her hips and dipped into the cleft between her legs. Dangerous for him to notice the secrets of this woman's body. She was too vulnerable, too available.

Too dangerous.

The scream that had funneled up the stairway to his room, her scream, reminded Royce of Jep's description of a shrieking horse broken and bleeding on the rocks at the base of a bluff. "A sound like nothing from this world. And the young master dead on his back, his open eyes haunted with the look of a man who'd seen hell."

Just when had Tallmadge seen his personal hell? Had he seen it as he fell down the forty foot face of a bluff? Or had he recognized his impending doom sooner?

"Miz Megan didn't make a sound. Not then."

Royce ran his hands up Megan McCall's leg, his fingertips nudging past the raised ridges of her scars. Jep's final decree echoed between Royce's ears. "Nobody wantin' ta die woulda worked so hard at livin'."

Beneath the ministrations of his hands, her twisted leg straightened, her calf grew more pliant, and the breaths swelling her breasts evened out. Her dark areolas shown through the thin, sweat-drenched nightrail.

He wanted to blow his hot breath across those damp peaks. He wanted to close his lips around those dusky tips. He wanted to draw their straining nipples deep into his mouth and taste the woman they belonged to.

Her fingers stumbled up between her breasts. He looked up and found her peering at him from beneath thick lashes.

Stripped of the stern mask of her stubborn control, he saw the vulnerable, young woman who lived in the depths of those pooling eyes. He saw shattered dreams and a broken heart. He saw the exhaustion of her battle. She hadn't the strength left in her to speak the words her slack lips formed.

Or maybe she held back what she might have uttered in a darkened room to a man kneeling between her legs, for she lifted her fingers from her chest and spread them toward his face. It would be easy to lean forward and test whether those fingers would rake or stroke. A raking would reassure him of the kind of woman he worked for and keep him in line.

But, if those slim fingers stroked, if their tips feathered against his cheek and her palm cupped his chin, he'd dare never again come within arms length of this woman...an impossible feat for a man whose job it was to carry her about.

He climbed out from between her legs and off her bed. Had her gaze followed him? Did the woman whose curves molded dampened cloth, whose midnight dark hair fanned across the pillows like some archangel tip her face in his direction?

God how he wanted to touch those thick locks spread around her pale face. He wanted to bury his fingers in them and feel their silken waves slip through his fingers. He wanted to sink his face into the shimmering tresses, to drown in their texture, their hue, their sweet scent. Would they be cool as New England coastal waters in the night, or warm as a deeply shaded Caribbean cove?

Would she be?

CHAPTER NINE

Three things kept Royce from plumbing the depths of Megan McCall at that very moment and finding out if she was a woman of ice or passion. Jaisy's presence. The exhaustion that made his mistress vulnerable. And the cool princess who'd denounced rutting men.

Royce ran a hand through his hair, dragging the mane off his forehead and back over his shoulders. He'd meant to bare his face and cool himself. But the gesture only shimmied his shaggy hair over his bare shoulders in a way that reminded him of a woman's hand. His body reacted with a vengeance.

Cursing under his breath, he spun away from Megan McCall's bed. He managed one long stride toward the exit before Jaisy's voice reached him.

"Mr. Devlawn! What we do for her now?"

He paused in the doorway. Raising his arms, he gripped the woodwork to either side of his head. And he held himself there for several seconds, fighting the blood pooling in his groin, fighting the urge to turn and face the maid with what his half-unbuttoned breeches barely concealed, fighting the need to claim the woman lying on the bed behind him.

"Nothing," he finally rasped in a voice dry as sand. And he dropped his arms and strode stiffly, swiftly toward the stairs to the third floor. "We do nothing."

Jaisy's bare feet padded into the hall behind him. "And if de cramping come back?"

Without slowing, he called from the steps, "Rub her legs."

***

He slept the sleep of the damned. Nightmarish images knocked about his head and tossed his body to and fro. He woke with every turn. And he found himself each time as hard and urgent as a schoolboy set upon by puberty.

"The woman's bewitched me," he muttered into his pillow, his groin buried in sweat drenched sheets. Even after months at sea, he'd never hit shore with a need this burning.

He flipped onto his back, suffering the friction of damp cloth against stiff flesh. Even then, that part of him that defined his gender stood proudly, slicing a shadow through the moonlight across his belly.

"Damn her and all her kind!"

He threw an arm over his eyes and drifted off into restless slumber, her name and a curse on his breath, only to wake what seemed like minutes later to sunlight. At least that traitorous male part of him had finally given up and settled down.

Dousing his face with water from the pitcher on the dressing table, he donned his clothes and hurried down the steps. Judging by the angle of the sun, he'd already missed breakfast and the princess of the manor would likely be fuming over his tardiness.

He paused at the foot of the stairs across from her open bedchamber door. He could see her empty bed, stripped already of any evidence that her night had been as tortured as his...though surely for different reasons. He listened for any telltale tone of voice which would give away her mood. But he heard only Jaisy's low humming.

He strode into the room. Jaisy was bent at the hearth banking a low fire. His gaze homed on Megan McCall, stretched out like a content Tabby on the daybed in front of the window. Not quite in full profile, sunlight shafted around her, setting her apart from the rest of the room. Damned if the perfect, alabaster nape of her neck exposed by her upswept hair didn't send the blood spiraling again toward his groin. He cursed.

Even Royce Devlin's crude declaration didn't jolt Megan near as much as the sight of him standing beside her bed, his hair as unbridled as it had been last night when he'd knelt between her legs. She hadn't been dreaming after all. He'd been real. The beast whose face she'd reached through the darkness to touch was back, stirring life in a heart she'd thought dead.

Then he strode forward, toward her, his burnt-brown eyes blazing. The teacup on the saucer in her hand rattled. She lowered the saucer to her lap, reluctant for him to see her tremble. Though, a part of her relished the notion that he could make her quake in anticipation.

As she had last night when he'd knelt between her knees with the flap of his breeches fastened at one corner by but one button. The anticipation of what that wayward scrap of fabric cloaked, of what the dark tendrils of hair seaming down the center of his naked abdomen led to had sparked a fire in her she'd been too spent last night to kindle.

She wanted him to lift her, now. But not because of her broken limbs. Simply because she was a woman and he very much a man. The unbidden thought careened through her, opening channels barely explored and flooding them with scalding blood.

He halted beside the daybed. "You're flushed already and we haven't even begun the exercises."

The blood drained from her fingers. His gaze dropped to the cup in her lap, ricocheted to the decanter and teapot on the tea table, and narrowed at Jaisy. "Douse that fire," he commanded.

"But de compresses -- "

"It's too hot for compresses today."

Megan opened her mouth to ask what he had in mind when he met her gaze. No, not met, studied. Then he dropped his chin and sunlight glinted off the dark, ruddy lashes as they sank over eyes gazing down the front of her. She fought to keep the cup and saucer she held in her lap from knocking together. She succeeded. But, the moment he spoke in his rich, throaty voice, she realized she'd won but a skirmish.

"In fact, it's too hot for any work this day."

Megan straightened away from the back of the daybed. "I'll be the one to judge when we labor and when we won't."

"Your maid's brow is already slick with sweat. And you, Princess -- " His gaze raked her upper lip. " -- how long before that cool skin of yours overheats?"

Just that look sent a shower of sparks through her that made her want to feel his fingertip against her lips. Or his lips.

She shook off the craving and sliced her chin at him. "I am the mistress of this household and I will say when we work and when we don't."

A muscle tugged at one corner of his mouth, the burnt-brown eyes gleamed, and, when he spoke, his voice hummed with deceptive sweetness. "I'd have thought you'd learned your lesson about giving ultimatums last night."

Her cheeks burned as though touched by a firebrand.

"By your leave, Princess, I believe I'll take a bit of air today." With a curt bow, he turned and strode toward the door.

"You can't leave," she squawked.

He paused on the threshold and looked back at her, one eyebrow cocked high. "Can't? Oh but I can, Princess. Didn't you learn that lesson the day I dumped you in the library?"

And he stepped out of sight, just as he had the afternoon he'd left her trapped on the settee in the library. She tried to swing her legs off the daybed. But they were yet as unresponsive as they had been a week ago.

The Saints save her, she'd not depend on Royce Devlin a minute longer than she had to. Any man with a little brawn could carry her about. He'd said so himself.

But no man had offered her a chance at freeing herself from the confinement of her damaged limbs, no man but the cursed pirate who called himself a gentleman.

***

"I own you!" Her howl carried the message into the hall where it bounced off wall and banister, surrounding him.

Royce stopped dead on the landing halfway between first and second floors and lifted his face toward the top of the stairway. Any enjoyment he'd gotten out of besting Megan McCall vanished with those three words. The rage replacing his satisfaction almost spurred him back up the steps to rebut her claim.

She didn't own him. She only held his papers.

For the next fourteen years, minus two weeks, add on a couple suits of clothing.

"Might as well call it the rest of my life!"

A life sentence. If he went back up to that room and throttled her, he could do no worse.

"By the blood of God," he snarled, "I could do better. If I choked the life from her, I might get hung for it and escape this hell on earth."

Before the temptation overtook him, he fled the remaining steps, her ranting, and the house. His long strides eating up the distance between house and stables, he muttered, "Though I doubt any judge would condemn me for silencing the mouth of so contrary a woman."

Spotting Jep in front of the stables, Royce detoured around the weathered building. He was in no mood to hear any more of the old man's sentimental excuses for their mistress.

Royce gripped the top rung of the split rail fence enclosing the closer of the two pastures. The draft horses that hauled the flatbed of workers to the shipyard six days out of every seven and the gray filly that powered the phaeton lifted their heads from their grazing and gazed at him. One draft horse stomped a hoof. The filly tossed her head. In the far pasture, Cinnabar paced and trumpeted. He knew the stallion's frustration.

Pushing off from the fence, Royce headed up the overgrown lane cutting into a stand of towering pines. Humidity and heat be damned, he'd run every mile of the woods if that's what it would take to escape the frustration of confinement.

But the evergreens were no more than a windbreak between the house and another clearing. And the forest beyond was not nearly as enticing as the broad, tumbling waterfall in the center of the clearing.

The incessant drumming beckoned to Royce's restless spirit. As though his throat was parched, his feet carried him from the grass-clogged ruts of the road toward the river.

The force of the water ate into the land here, pushing up rocks and piling them along the shoreline. The notion that the river's power would someday eat through the bend upon which Hillhouse was built appealed to him. Unfortunately, his bones would be reduced to dust before that justice could be enjoyed.

Royce picked his way out onto the boulders that cut into the river. The spray off the falls misted up over him. But the clean scent of fast water couldn't wash away the demons driving him, demons Megan McCall's inflexibility had invoked from his past.

Or were the demons she summoned more immediate?

Staring into the tumultuous backwash of the waterfall, he thought of the dreams he'd suffered through the night, dreams of her that had turned his body tight and hard.

He groaned. It would take more than earthly elements to free him. A lot more. Maybe more than he dared risk. Stripping off his clothes, he dove into the dark, turbulent water.

The current ripped at his body, dragging him away from the light of day, away from the air that he needed to breathe. Death was the ultimate escape, the easiest escape. But Royce Devlin had never taken the easy way out of any predicament.

He porpoised from the water and roared for breath, roared against the injustice that ruled his life. He roared against the force of the falls driving him toward the hook of land where Hillhouse's highest dormers could be seen through the branches of the towering pines. Hillhouse land tamed the river running past the plantation house. But, no plantation land, no plantation mistress would beat him into submission, not without a fight.

He punched his arms through the sluicing water. He kicked his legs against the frenzied current. He battled the white water churned up by a falls half again as tall as a man and broad as a schooner's hull. He fought his way back to the boulders where he'd left his clothes and hefted himself up onto a submerged ledge where the rocks hooked into the river.

The horseshoe-shaped nook caught the water, eddying it around his spent body. He draped his arms over the rocks piled either side of him and leaned back.

Atop the falls, an idle waterwheel groaned. Sawmills were in short supply along the Tidewater. If Megan McCall owned the structure, why didn't she use it?

Probably for the same reason she under-used his talents.

Above the rumble of the falls, from above him, a deep voice descended. "You got the itch out of your system?"

Royce tipped his head back and peered up Dunn's towering height. "You tell me, do you ever get rid of it?"

Dunn's fists flexed at his sides. "She's calling for you."

"And if I don't want to come?"

His black gaze shot through Royce like hot lead. "You'll come. One way or another."

Royce pulled himself onto the dry rocks at Dunn's feet, wadded up his shirt, and began rubbing himself dry. A bonded man didn't need to ask one enslaved why he obeyed even the most unjust of masters. Still, this slave had had his ear severed. This dark man had pride.

"You protect her. Why?"

"She got her uses. You best find yours of her."

Snagging his pants off the rocks, Royce climbed to his feet and looked Dunn in the eye. "Jep told me the doctor threatened to have you hung if gangrene set in and she died. What use could she be to you that you'd risk your life to stop a doctor from sawing off her legs?"

The flame deep in Dunn's dark eyes shimmied. "She wanted to keep her legs. All I done was remind the doctor he best set her bones right, cause if her dying meant me hanging, then this black man had nothin' to lose in breaking a white doctor's neck on the way to the gallows."

"There's only one thing she could offer me that would make me risk my life to protect her. My freedom."

"Get your pants on, Devlin. The lady's waiting."

***

Megan craned her neck toward the bedchamber window. She couldn't blame Royce Devlin for running. She'd have run from a raving lunatic claiming ownership of her...if she could run.

"Do you see them yet?"

Jaisy glanced from the bedchamber window overlooking the road behind Hillhouse. "Do not worry, Miss Megawn. My husband will find dat man and bring him back."

Megan traced the gold rim of the saucer in her lap with her fingertip. Her mother had told her stories about the Hill's coming to the colonies and scratching a living from the soil. That industriousness of her ancestors had earned them this grand house filled with gold rimmed china. And when the land began to fail, her grandfather hadn't betrayed the legacy. He'd refused to sell off an acre of Hillhouse land, a single gold encrusted plate, or even one child of a slave couple.

Megan studied Jaisy's regal outline against the sunlit window. She'd barely regained her senses after the crash in time to save Jaisy's children from the auction block. But she hadn't been able to stay the sale of every other able-bodied Hillhouse slave. And she'd been able to buy back only the shipbuilding crew up to this point.

"My man never fail you," Jaisy said.

Megan smiled wanly. "True, so far."

Jaisy's amber eyes flashed. "Never! This I vow."

But, I've never before sent Dunn to deny another man his freedom.

Megan drew a deep breath. "But, if Mr. Devlin does escape, have you seen enough of his methods to continue the work?"

"I see him warm your legs with de hot compresses and knead de flesh with his fingers."

"Good."

"I see him push on your foot until your toes no longer point straight to de ground."

Memory of his hands, warm and strong, engulfing one foot then the other curled through Megan. "Fine."

"But -- " Jaisy drew a deep breath and looked out the window. " -- I know not how he will push de strength back into your legs."

The possibility that Royce Devlin was gone and his secrets with him, that she'd felt for the last time the heat of his palm against the instep of her foot raged through Megan like a flood tide returning. Panic rode the crest of that deluge, tensing her muscles, paralyzing her. She sucked a breath against the fear threatening to pull her under, sucked air that refused to fill her lungs and buoy her spirit.

"Dey coming now."

Megan exhaled. Outrage replaced anxiety. Anger over-rode fear. She steeled herself for the confrontation as the back door rattled open and slammed shut. She cocked her chin toward the entrance as two sets of footsteps echoed up the stairwell. She grit her teeth and clenched the muscles at the hinge of her jaw as the heavy, masculine footfalls echoed through the hall outside the sitting room's open door.

The minute Royce Devlin crossed her threshold, she'd lambaste him as he'd never been before. She'd harangue him until his ears were as red as if she'd cuffed them. She'd censure him until he begged her forgiveness.

He stepped into the room, his untethered hair slicked back beneath a dark sheen of moisture. For an instant, Jaisy's description of him striding naked through the moonlight across her front lawn melded with the one of him kneeling bare-chested upon her bed between her legs.

"Before you go accusing me of running off," he roared, scattering her thoughts, "let me remind you, Princess, there are laws protecting indentureds."

She noted his dry breeches beneath the untucked tails of his shirt. She tried not to notice the tan flesh visible through the damp, white, linen of that shirt. She tried to sound mocking.

"Do you so fear my retaliation, Mr. Devlin, that you invoke the law of the land?"

His eyes darkened to a shade that almost matched his water-slicked auburn hair. "You can order my ear hacked off in punishment, but the deed will be done over your dead body."

Megan McCall paled. Jaisy gasped. Tension bristled off Dunn and Royce braced himself for the impact of the big man's hands. He expected no less, not when he'd just threatened their mistress' life. But she waved Dunn back.

Like a well-heeled dog, Dunn obeyed a mistress cruel enough to have ordered him nailed to a pillory. Unless the order hadn't been hers. Jep had said she'd been more unconscious than conscious through the early weeks of her recovery.

But, if she was guilt free, why did she lose what little color she had? Why had the severe line of her mouth fallen away the instant he'd accused her? Why wouldn't she meet his gaze?

"I'm not in the habit of corporal punishment, Mr. Devlin."

Not in the habit? Did that mean she wasn't as heartless as he feared, or that she meted out her physical retribution on a lesser scale than most masters?

"But I'll not tolerate a servant who refuses to do his job."

The cobalt eyes looked him square in the eye now.

"And I call upon the law of the land regarding your over-use of the bonded servants in your employ," he countered.

"Are you accusing me of misusing you, Mr. Devlin?"

"Indentureds get half a day Saturday and all of Sunday off from work," he leveled back at her. "Today is Sunday."

The sea-blue eyes widened a degree. Did he detect surprise or censure in that reaction? The silence stretched between them before she finally said, "I hadn't realized. For me, one day's much the same as the next."

Pushing back a twinge of compassion, he retorted, "Then you'll excuse me."

He started to turn. But she stopped him with a question.

"Yesterday, Saturday afternoon, you worked. Shouldn't that have been your free time, too?"

"Yes."

"We've been working since before last weekend. You didn't take your time off last Saturday or Sunday either, did you?"

"No."

"So you've already given up a day and a half of free time."

If she thought his charity of the past days grounds to demand of him this day too...

"I'm sorry. I hadn't realized."

He didn't expect contrition. Contrition pricked the compassion he was already working hard to bridle. He bit his tongue to keep from volunteering away his day.

"I'll find some way to make it up to you, Mr. Devlin. Sorry to have interfered with your free day. You're dismissed."

Royce blew a relieved breath and stepped toward the door. Dunn moved aside. Just one more stride and he'd be out of the room. He'd be free, at least for the remainder of the day.

"Mr. Devlin."

The sole of his shoe caught the threshold. He halted. His shoulders drooped. He turned toward her but remained as he was, near his escape.

"You would be interested in shortening your indentureship, correct?"

If ever a loaded question was asked, this was one. Cautiously, he nodded.

"What if, for each free day you give up to me I shorten your indentureship a day?"

Royce threw back his head and howled. "How generous of you, madam. Thank you but no."

He raised one foot over the threshold.

"Two days for each day you give up."

He wheeled back at her. "You speak of days, Princess, when my indentureship is for years. If I spent my free time at the gambling tables, I could earn the coin to buy myself out of bond at a far faster rate than you offer."

"A month for each day."

This offer made him pause. Each day they worked on her legs kept them out of the shipyards. But, even when in the yard, she didn't free him to wander the waterfront. Nor could he be lucky enough at any game table to best a deal this generous...even if he had the coin with which to gamble...which he didn't.

Narrowly, he eyed his mistress. "This offer of a month for each day, be that a month for each half Saturday as well as a full Sunday?"

She hesitated, but only briefly before nodding.

"And this offer includes the days I've already given you?"

"Yes."

The arrangement was not forever binding. If it turned unpalatable, he could end it. He nodded. "Now for my terms."

Megan eyed Royce Devlin, wondering what more the man dared demand, puzzling why she dared ask. "Such as?"

He snatched the cup from her lap with a speed that startled her and sniffed at its contents. "No more spiking your tea with whiskey."

"I need it for the morning pain," she sputtered.

"And the afternoon pain, the evening pain, and the night pain," he accused.

"When necessary."

He shook his head, his tawny hair shuddering about his shoulders like a lion's mane, and flung the contents of her cup onto the hearth. The fire hissed and spit. A knot popped, showering Jaisy's skirt with sparks. By the time Jaisy shook off her skirt, Royce Devlin had snatched up the whiskey decanter and crossed the room to the window.

Megan sat up straight. "What are you doing?"

"Getting rid of this poison."

"But -- "

"The pain?" He hitched one burnished eyebrow high onto his forehead; and, removing the crystal stopper, he thrust the decanter out the window and upended it.

Anguish gurgled in Megan's throat as the golden contents spilled crazily from the narrow neck of the bottle.

"There will be no more whiskey before or during the exercising."

"I'll have pain."

"And you'll have more before we're done."

"I'll need something to dull the pain," she argued, her voice scratchy in her dry throat.

"I'll allow some wine after each exercise session."

"You'll allow?"

"My terms. Take them or leave them."

She lifted her chin. "You think I'm weak, don't you?"

He slid the crystal stopper into the opening of the empty decanter, the scrape of glass against glass pointed enough answer for her.

"I didn't always depend upon strong drink to dull my pain, Mr. Devlin. Before the whiskey, I took absinthe. Before absinthe, I depended on opium. A little something my gentleman of a physician prescribed."

The shock of what she was telling him shot through Royce. A man didn't travel the world over without witnessing the ravages of addictions and the torments of overcoming them.

She stretched toward him. "So, you see, Mr. Devlin, I'm quite practiced at weaning myself off any kind of dependence."

"I've no doubt that you are," he managed to answer. "Just one more condition remains."

Recalling having seen a lap desk on the table beside her bed, he retrieved it set it in her lap. "Now, in writing."

"My word is good," she snapped.

"I'm sure it is. But I'll have it in writing just the same."

Glaring at him, she lifted the lid of the box and pulled out a sheet of paper. When she finished writing, she handed him the inscribed sheet. He read it, noted her signature at its bottom, and handed it back to her.

"Now the dates of the days I've already given to you followed by your initials. That's how we'll keep track of the months you deduct from my indentureship. Jaisy and Dunn can make their marks or write their signatures as witnesses to the agreement."

Mouth set in a tight line, she complied.

Blotting powder brushed aside, Royce announced, "We'll resume the exercises as soon as this hot spell passes."

"No. I'll not wait."

"It's unwise to labor in such heat."

"Summer is upon us. Will your orders regarding my exercising be to refuse to work whenever you find the weather not to your liking?" she accused.

Though early in the day, sweat trickled down Royce's flanks. "'Tis madness to work in this heat."

"'Tis madness to be confined by useless legs," she retorted.

But it was the disappointment in the sea-blue eyes watering up at him that reached where Royce resisted being touched. Silently he damned himself this flaw of his, his inability to refuse a distressed woman. Was it his penance for having once refused? Once. And that woman had meant more to him than this one or any other.

Smugly, she smiled up at him as though she'd just thought of something he hadn't. "You did not make the heat of the day part of your conditions, sir."

So he hadn't. He eyed the fire in the hearth and glanced at the window that caught no breeze. If Dunn hadn't found him, he'd still be on a submerged ledge, lounging chest deep in cool, river water, the current eddying around him.

Megan studied Royce Devlin's face. Would he say yea or nay? The shadows passing across his eyes didn't reassure her. But, he was thinking, likely how best to bend the agreement to his needs. She had no delusions about what Royce Devlin wanted. She wanted the same thing. Freedom. But, had she convinced him that the shortest route to his was to give her hers?

Finally, he met her gaze, a disarming twinkle in his tawny eyes. "Miss McCall, are you afraid of the water?"

CHAPTER TEN

Royce peeled off his shirt and tossed it over the phaeton fender in front of his mistress. She glanced at him...or rather his chest, then looked away...studiously. Maybe the Mistress of Hillhouse wasn't the prude she pretended to be. If it weren't such a dangerous game, he'd have liked to test his theory by tickling some of the rigidness out of her rod straight spine.

Then again, maybe not. He had only his heart and soul left to him. If her heart cried out to his, she might end up owning his soul as well as his brawn for the next fourteen years of his life.

He yanked off his socks. Better that he take amusement from the power he'd wrestled from her and nothing more. Dangling the stockings in her line of vision, he challenged, "You keeping yours on?"

Her lean chin tilted a lofty angle. "Of course."

Stuffing his stockings into the toes of his shoes, he set his footgear on the floor of the phaeton beside her stockinged feet and scooped her out of the carriage. She gasped and clamped her hands over his bare shoulders. He smiled smugly.

He turned toward the river with its rumbling waterfall. She sank against his chest, the starch vanishing from her stiff posture. Aah, the sweet justice of nettling her for a change.

He made his strides from buggy to bank long and his voice mocking, "Are you sure you're ready for this?"

Her slim chin sliced through the air. "As I told you back at the house, my father taught me to swim in these very waters. I'm a very good swimmer."

"Were," he corrected, pausing on the rocks piled against the riverbank, studying her face for reaction.

"What do you mean, were?" she challenged not without considerable alarm, two spots of color popping out where her cheekbones framed her face.

He looked her in the eye. "Legs that do not walk cannot swim."

She dropped her chin toward the force of the river slamming against the boulders beneath them. The breath caught in her throat, the color drained from her cheeks, the white water boiling up from the falls reflected in the widening, cobalt eyes.

He didn't know what emotion he'd meant to provoke in a woman who sped with reckless abandon across the very bluff where her husband died. But he hadn't expected fear. Her momentary vulnerability touched too near his heart...as it always did.

He hardened his voice. "Yea or nay, madam?"

She licked her lips, trepidation etching fine lines around her drawn mouth and pulling her eyebrows into worried angles. Nettling her was one thing. Harassing her was another.

"I'm no murderer, Princess," he conceded in a gentler voice. "I won't let you drown."

Her eyes darkened at him like sunless waves in a choppy sea, all but drowning the terror in the vortex of her pupils. "You do and you'll pay with your own life."

She nodded toward the phaeton where they'd left Dunn, legs braced, arms crossed, glower fixed. She made no idle threat.

Royce blew an exasperated breath across his lips. "So, do we get in the water or not?"

She glanced in the direction of the rapids mid-river. A slight tremble telegraphed from her body to his and she breathed out, "That's what we came here to do."

No faint heart beat in this plantation princess' breast. He'd give her that much.

Royce stepped down from the jetty of boulders that redirected the power of the falls. The river swelled over his knees and lapped up his thighs. He knew the moment the water reached her dangling toes. She stiffened, her slim arms around his neck cinching her closer and squashing her compact breasts against his chest. He gave himself a moment to enjoy the kind of curves he hadn't experienced in over a year, to experience the shape of the woman who hid her physical assets beneath the loose drape of a mourning gown. Then, he lashed back the lust that would have horrified her and doomed him, muttering, "Easy, Princess. I won't drop you. Trust me."

Trust him? Terror strangled the protest in Megan's throat as the back of her skirt caught in the swirling water. She couldn't trust a man the law named pirate, a man who touted himself as a gentleman.

But at the moment, she had no choice but to do just that.

He bent forward and water lapped over her ankles, climbed her calves, and engulfed her hips. A gasp escaped her clutched throat as the cool, liquid fingers of the river eddied around her waist. She dug her fingertips into the back of Royce Devlin's neck and buried her face against his shoulder.

His breath when he spoke lifted strands of her hair against the back of her ear. "Easy, Princess. I'm just setting you down on a shelf in the rocks under the water here."

He slid his arm out from under her legs. She felt the firmness beneath her then, felt his arm slack across her back. But he didn't let go completely. He didn't hurry her.

She loosened her hold on him, let her hands slide from the nape of his neck to the crests of his shoulders. He moved his to her waist, creating a warm circle of security within the cool flood of river water.

"Let go of me, Princess."

She flexed her fingers against his bare skin. Her mouth was dry, her lips sticking as she parted them. "Dunn won't run off with you. You should know that."

"I know."

He said it with such resignation that she shifted back from him, just far enough to look him in the eye. Something flickered in the burnt-brown orbs, something akin to the elusive message she'd seen the very first time she'd looked him in the eye and been reminded of rust. What from his tarnished past ate so deeply into the man that even the mirrors of his soul reflected the corrosion?

"I'm not planning on running," he murmured, the ache in his eyes washed away by a sheen of devilment. "Not yet any way."

Curse the man and his pirate's black heart. What she'd seen must have been a trick of light. He had no soul.

She pushed herself away from his broad, bronze chest. The current within the rocky hook surged beneath her sodden skirts, lifting her, tossing her onto one hip. He must have let her go!

She flailed her legs and grappled for a hold on the damnable pirate who'd only moments ago disavowed murder, who'd said he wouldn't run, who'd promised he wouldn't let go of her. Would she never stop playing the fool to men who feigned honor?

Her thrashing knee cut up, connecting at the uppermost juncture of his legs. He grunted and sagged, his weight shifting into his hands, hands that still weighted her hips amongst the sodden skirts. So, he'd kept one promise. He hadn't let go.

Her fingers fastening onto his forearms, she stilled and peeked up at him.

"That's one way to protect your virtue, Princess," he said through a pained grimace.

"I wasn't -- I mean, I didn't mean to -- " She gulped back the words she couldn't bluntly speak to a stranger, to a man, to a smug pirate. "I-I thought you'd let go of me."

He fanned his fingers over her hips, pinning her against the stone shelf. "They never left your body."

The breath caught in Megan's throat. She tore her gaze from the rusty eyes that mocked her embarrassment, winced from the crooked smile stretching his lips.

She stared at his chin, determined to regain her composure. But the whiskers she hadn't given him time to shave away glinted in the sunlight like copper, reminding her that she'd never again know the coarse texture of a man's face.

What respectable man would have a crippled widow with a failed plantation and floundering shipyard? What man indeed?

"You're not strong enough yet to keep yourself in place," her bondsman murmured, lifting her by the waist, taking her place on the shelf and depositing her on his lap as though she and her sopping skirts weighed nothing.

Even through layers of breeches, skirts, and petticoats, his thighs warmed the backs of hers. Stifling a groan, she stiffened her spine away from his broad chest and folded her hands primly in her lap.

"Such a proper posture, Princess. You'd make the stuffiest of dowagers proud."

His breath scorched the back of her ear, making the rest of her long to be likewise warmed. But by the touch of a pirate? Surely not!

The current within the cluster of rocks dragged at her bountiful skirts, pulling her across thighs as hard as the slate. The pirate's laughter bit into her pride as he spoke. "Where's that lofty modesty of yours when we most need it?"

He hauled her back into place, his fingers searing her ribs like steel fresh from a smithy's forge. Mortification climbed from Megan's over-heating thighs, up her spine, and into her cheeks. The Saints preserve her, wherever he touched her would be made as defenseless as Achilles' undipped heel.

"It's the skirt of my gown giving us all this trouble," she rushed out.

"And what trouble would that be, Princess?"

"I'm not your princess."

"I believe we were discussing the problem of your gown," he chirped.

She glared over her shoulder at him, incensed that he so willfully commanded the situation. He smiled back at her as smug as a Cheshire cat.

Squaring herself on his lap, Megan muttered, "You warned me it would be too long, that it would get in the way."

"Now you volunteer to take it off?"

The Saints save her, the man was incorrigible. But she needed him, at least until he restored the strength to her legs. Through clenched teeth, she returned, "What I meant was, I'll make better arrangements for tomorrow."

"And for today?"

"I-I don't have a solution. Do you?"

"If you're willing to surrender a bit of your modesty -- "

"I don't intend to surrender anything to you, Mr. Devlin!"

"You already have, Princess. More than you'll ever admit."

She twisted in his lap and gaped at him. His fingers tightened over her hips.

"Steady," he murmured in a low voice. "That slim knee of yours didn't wound me enough to incapacitate completely."

She blushed. His devilish grin widened.

"Red favors you."

"I'm not wearing re -- " The meaning of his words sunk in and her blush deepened, searing her skin from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. She turned away from him, refusing him the satisfaction of viewing any more of her discomfort.

"How about it, Princess? I could gather up the skirt of your gown -- "

Shock gurgled in her throat.

" -- and tuck it in between us. That should appeal to your sense of modesty."

He hooked the tips of his index fingers into the folds of her skirt and tugged. She clamped her hands over his, stilling those straying fingers.

He leaned close, his unyielding chest butting against her shoulder blades as he whispered into her ear. "I've seen far more of you than your petticoats this past week."

The river swelled over their linked hands and swirled soft as a lover's caress around Megan's wrists. As though the water boiled rather than chilled, she pulled her hands away.

"Is that a yes?" His breath fluttered strands of her hair that had come loose at her temple.

"I-I don't know."

"Megan -- "

The sound of her given name soft upon his resonant voice snapped through Megan like an unfurled sail catching the wind. She couldn't think. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe.

" -- I've handled your nearly bare legs."

"Fine," she inhaled, provoked to the limits of reason. "Do what you must. I've suffered worse humiliation."

He threaded his arms under hers. "Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you?"

"I don't want yours or anyone else's pity, Mr. Devlin!"

Vising her firmly into place between his elbows, he grabbed up a handful of skirt in each hand. "Good, because you're not getting mine."

Megan's mouth popped open. But the sight of white petticoat edging out from under black mourning cloth clotted any argument she might have offered in her throat. Though why she should suffer modesty after years of frolicking in the calmer, more secluded waters upriver of the falls wearing nothing more than what she'd been born with, she couldn't fathom. She'd even swum the wild waters below the falls in chemise and little more.

But she'd done neither in the presence of a man the likes of Royce Devlin. Though she had allowed him to handle her damaged legs when they were cloaked in nothing more than thin stockings. Why did she find herself curiously shy about Royce Devlin unveiling her petticoats now?

She leaned back against him, testing, though she wasn't sure what she tested for. She shouldn't tempt anything where Royce Devlin was concerned. He wasn't the sort of man who'd limit the spread of his broad hands to respectable places.

"Hitch up your behind, Princess."

Megan blanched. "Excuse me?"

"Unless you want your skirt shortly swimming back over your ankles -- " He hung his face so near her cheek that she could feel the beat of his pulse in his throat against the side of her neck. " -- or, unless you've changed your mind about tucking the layers of your skirt between me and your modest little behi -- "

Megan jammed her palms against his thighs and pushed, galvanized into action by his threat. But she hadn't the strength to raise herself and ended up doing nothing more than wriggling from side to side.

A growl sounded deep in Royce Devlin's throat. "Still yourself, woman, or it'll take Dunn to pry the two of us apart."

Startled, Megan's wall of indignation shot up. "Don't get vulgar with me, Mr. Devlin."

"Then quit squirming about," he complained, no longer sounding amused.

Peering over her shoulder, she leveled, "Perhaps now, you can understand why I was adamant about employing a couple."

The rust hued eyes narrowed. "I'm not at all sure I understand."

"Arousal, Mr. Devlin."

"You expected the man you hired to carry you to be aroused by the handling? You've a lofty opinion of your assets, madam."

"Such stimulation is a reflex among men."

"One that can be governed."

"You seem to be having difficulty governing yours today."

"With you squirming on my lap like a harlot in heat, yes."

"I, sir, am no harlo -- "

Bunching the voluminous fabric of her skirt under her elbows, Royce Devlin's broad hands vised her waist and skidded her off his lap.

"What're you doing?" she all but shrieked as her bottom hit the stone shelf between his legs.

"Protecting your virtue, madam," he answered in a tone that sounded more like a curse than a jest.

***

He'd meant only to hold her in place. He hadn't meant for his fingers to take measure of the diminutive but definite female curve of her hips. He'd only meant to take the starch out of her stiff demeanor and provoke a bit of color into her cheeks. He hadn't expected to find her slack-with-surprise lips enticing nor the graceful curve of her throat inviting.

He'd meant only to nettle her a bit, not set her bouncing about his lap until his body betrayed him.

If he was free to choose, he wouldn't have returned to the river below the falls with a woman he must never have in the way his body wanted hers. But he wasn't free, not to the point that he could afford to squander a day's service in exchange for a month's freedom. So, he'd returned for a second weekend to the river with her, and every day in between.

Royce slid his hands under Megan's knee and beneath her calf. The muscles in the limb jumped against his palms. "Do I hold your leg too high, madam?"

"N-no," she answered, her voice pitched high.

He looked up, careful to avoid the expanse of skin a winter-weight chemise bared from collarbone to throat. A week of exercises in the sun had burnished a healthy glow into her cheeks. Eight nights of uninterrupted slumber had erased the lines of strain from the corners of her eyes. Eight days and nights without strong drink brought a clarity to her eyes so brilliant it almost hurt to peer into them.

Or did the pain reflecting back at him come from a deeper source?

She blinked, her long, sooty lashes shuttering away the uncertainty in her eyes. He shouldn't be noticing what lay sheltered in their watery depths. He shouldn't wonder what vulnerabilities she hid in those fathomless pools. Freedom could be his only focus.

"Push against the current with your leg," he instructed, forcing his concentration back to the job at hand, "just like you did when you were sitting on the ledge between my legs."

She colored. The exertion of her efforts? Or something more irksome, like the memory of a man's thighs pressed against the outsides of hers?

Her pinched lips parted. "The limb feels...weak. Am I...?"

So it was worry creasing her brow, not consternation at the intimacy of his hand at the back of her knee. He had to admire her courage in asking the question. Few men were brave enough to ask a question the answer to which they may not like. She was.

"Am I, worsening, that is?"

"No, Princess, you're not worsening. Your leg feels weaker because it doesn't have the support of mine today."

"Oh."

The word shaped her mouth into a small oval. That roundness lingered on her lips, a soft enticement from a woman who could flay open a man's ego with her sharp tongue.

Freedom. Like a gauzy veil, the target of his ambition shimmied between them.

"You're doing fine," he managed on a tight breath.

"Am I?"

"You'll be circling your legs through the water on your own in no time."

"Will I?"

"Without a doubt."

"How can you know?"

He should have been prepared for the question, should have expected it's directness. She wasn't the sort of woman who spoke in riddles from behind a flirtatious fan.

"Does my progress compare to those on whom you previously used the exercises?" she pressed.

He stared at her leg, in the water, in his hands. "I'm no expert, Princess."

"But you had the experience of the captain's arm and -- " She peeked at him from beneath her thick lashes. " -- -And the other. How fares the one with injuries you say were similar to mine?"

He knew her litany. She'd recited her questions often enough in the days past. "They both fare well."

"But -- "

"You'll progress at your own speed."

"But -- "

"And you progress speedily, madam."

"But -- "

"I have a new exercise for you to try today."

Megan recognized an impasse when she met one, especially one that stretched like a chasm between her and Royce Devlin every time she questioned him about his other charges. Or, more specifically, he clammed up every time she pressed for the details on the recovery of the one injured much as she had been. He still hadn't so much as hinted at that one's gender. Why he seemed compelled to hide that detail nagged at Megan.

"See if you can lift your heels into my hands," he said, wading out in front of her.

Long unused muscles protested as she forced her legs up through the current eddying within the semi-circle of stones. Then, her heels slipped into the cups of his palms. Even through her stockings, the contact scorched. Did he feel it too? Did he refuse to speak of the one who'd been injured like her because that one was a woman like herself with skin that blazed to his touch? Had that lady scorned the pirate?

"Now straighten your legs one at a time," he instructed.

She pushed with her left leg, inching it straight. Maybe there'd been another man involved, a husband. Perhaps the affair had been illicit.

"Good." His heady voice strummed a wistful chord across her heart. "Now relax that one and try the other."

The muscles in her right leg didn't burn as much in the attempt as those in her left had. Or maybe she was simply distracted by the idea of the pirate stealing the lady's heart. There was something pleasantly familiar in that scenario.

"Relax and try again."

Her father had come from the sea and stolen the heart of her mother, her plantation society grandfather's most prized jewel. Perhaps Royce Devlin had been denied by a doting father who'd considered a pirate unworthy of his daughter. Perhaps the lady hadn't loved the pirate enough to defy an autocratic parent as had her mother.

Royce Devlin's throaty request invaded her fantasy. "Exercising your legs requires few hours of my time. I'd like to occupy myself by making repairs around Hillhouse."

Perhaps Royce Devlin simply hadn't had the fortitude to win away the lady as had her father, and tending her as he now did only reminded him of that failure. Megan sighed. "The house fares well enough."

"The house fares poorly," he countered.

She eyed the beads of sweat popping out across his sun soaked shoulders. Or did the spray off the backwash wet those broad plains? Whichever the source, she wanted to roll the sunlit droplets between her fingertips and his naked flesh. But, what Megan wanted wasn't always what Megan got, in spite of what Royce Devlin thought of her.

Dropping her gaze to where the skirt of her chemise pooled over her legs, she rebutted, "For the same reason I denied your request to work in the shipyard, I deny this request as well."

"You don't demand my services on such short notice here that I wouldn't have time to wash away any sweat my labors created before serving you."

His fingers tightened along the backs of her ankles, accenting the tension already in his voice. Her right leg stiffened, jabbing her toes into his bare belly.

He wrapped his fingers around her foot. "You risk leaving me to the idle occupation of household gossip."

"There is no one at Hillhouse who'll gossip with you," she exhaled, the engulfing heat of his hands taking her breath away.

"Never underestimate the desperation of an idle man," he said in a low voice, rubbing his thumb along the arch of her foot and sending an exquisite shiver up her leg. "Allow me to occupy myself with honest labor. I beseech you, madam."

She'd rather he called her princess. She'd rather he laughed that deep, rich laugh of his again than argue as he did. Heaven help her, she'd rather have him back on the ledge behind her, his legs sprawled to either side of her.

But that was a familiarity she could not afford, not with a pirate who invoked the honor of a gentleman, a pirate who inspired a desire in her she'd long given up as dead. She knew what she must do to remove the temptation surging from his hands into her body.

"Perhaps what plagues you, Mr. Devlin, has less to do with idle occupation than your male needs."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

His thumb stilled against her instep.

"A man has certain base needs," she said more breathily than she intended, his lingering presence against the sensitive underside of her foot more distracting than she'd anticipated.

"And you think a woman hasn't?"

She felt herself blush. "The point is, your base needs. During our first session here in the river, you were inappropriately...aroused."

His thumb slid across from her instep, tightening around her foot in conspiracy with his fingers; and his voice rumbled deep in his throat. "My body reacted to your squirming backside. That's all."

"I wasn't aware my movement would provoke that kind of response."

"You were married, Princess."

"Yes, but -- "

"Was your husband such a boy?"

Megan blanched. Unwittingly, Royce Devlin had revealed the most intimate secret of her marriage bed. Peter Tallmadge's approach had been that of a shy schoolboy. He'd emptied himself into her as though being caught in the act of bedding her would earn him a swat from the Headmaster's ruler. He'd touched her as though she were made of delicate blown crystal when she'd yearned for the kind of fiery passion that melted sand into glass.

He'd worshipped her, not loved her.

And in making an icon of a flesh and blood woman, Peter Tallmadge had inadvertently doomed the both of them.

The image of his stricken, youthful face flashed in front of Megan. He'd stared forward, toward the edge of the precipice seconds away from the hooves of a horse that had been whipped into a blind frenzy, toward the last sunset his earthly eyes would ever see. I'm sorry had been his last words to her.

Royce's thumb swept the arch of Megan's foot. She glanced up and caught him studying her through pensive eyes that told her he'd seen more than she'd intended to reveal.

Megan bit the insides of her cheeks, bit back memories better left buried with a weak husband. Before Royce Devlin divined more from her, she rushed out, "What I wish to speak to you about is Sarah. The girl is clearly taken with you. Might you have changed your mind about marriage?"

His fingers loosened on the sensitive arch of her foot. "I've no place in my life for a wife as long as I'm bonded."

"Many a bondsman weds."

Cupping her heel in one hand and splaying the other up the back of her calf, he prodded her leg back into motion. "I can't marry any woman until I'm free."

Can't? Or won't?

Once upon a time ago, Megan had refused the attentions of suitors who didn't spark the gunpowder of her passion. Then her father had failed to return and her mother's insistence that they were women alone and unprotected eroded the illusion of free choice. The young woman who'd raced astride her stallion when proper ladies rode sidesaddle married the boy from the Carolina plantation that already had too many sons competing for it. Thus, Megan had surrendered her dream and taken on the yoke of reality.

She all but sighed. "None of us are ever truly free."

Royce Devlin's square jaw jutted up between them. "At the moment, I'd settle for my lawful liberation."

She studied the lines emanating from his taut lips, measured the tension in the fingers supporting her rotating leg. Better to not remind him she wouldn't give him that much freedom.

Almost casually, he asked, "When will we be in the shipyards again?"

"Do you so desperately miss the smell of sea salt, Mr. Devlin?" she snapped, not sure why his question irritated her.

The hope in his uplifted eyes hid something. Not that the hope wasn't genuine. He truly wanted back in the shipyards. Or, more likely, he wanted close to the ships, a familiar and fleet means of escape.

Megan scowled. "Or is it that you find my company in the isolation of Hillhouse so tiresome?"

He stared at her circling foot in the support of his palm. His silence was more answer than she needed. Icily, she retorted, "If the former, I suggest you visit the dock in front of Hillhouse during the quiet hours. When the wind blows just right, it brings the smell of the sea inland. If the latter -- "

His brow puckered, pinching a vertical groove above the bridge of his nose. She had never been a woman given to dashing the hopes in others. She'd never been cruel before.

And she couldn't be now.

"If the latter," she finished on a resigned breath, "I'm sure business will take me back to the shipyards before the end of the week."

The muscles that had bunched across his broad shoulders visibly eased. Had he been prepared to snap her in half if she'd pushed too far, to swim the breadth of the river, to escape her?

She glanced at Jep, dozing against the wheel of the phaeton. She'd had to send Dunn back to the shipyards. Ships didn't get built without their Master Shipwrights. But, why had she replaced him with gentle, old Jep? He wouldn't pull the trigger on the pistol with which she'd armed him if his life depended upon it. Only a half-wit might believe Jep would shoot.

And Royce Devlin wasn't stupid.

Had he also figured out that the real reason she'd wanted a wedded couple was because a man bound to a woman was less likely to run off. With Royce Devlin flat out refusing to consider marriage and the realization that threats wouldn't keep him at heel, Megan's blood ran cold. She couldn't afford to lose him. Not just because he'd cost her the price of a fourteen year indentureship. Not even because she depended upon the service of his arms and legs to move her about.

She was loathe to lose Royce Devlin because he held the key that would free her from the confinement of her damaged body.

She had to give him something that would make him want to stay. At the very least, she had to provide an enticement that would keep him entertained for as long as she needed him. She thought she knew what that diversion must be.

"Though I abhor men dallying with a girl's emotions, if you make yourself clear to Sarah, that any dalliance will not lead to marriage, you've my permission to pursue her."

"I have your permission?" He let go of her ankle and calf. "What of Sarah? Does she get a say in the matter?"

Unprepared for his argument, Megan sputtered, "Of course she must be willing."

He flung his arms in the air, catapulting angry droplets of water through the air. "And if she's not?"

Megan hadn't expected him to refuse the offer. She'd expected him to leeringly accept.

And she'd expected herself to be disgusted by his eagerness to bed another woman. She realized that now.

He stepped close, close enough that the heat of his thighs penetrated the cold river washing across her knees. "Perhaps I could simplify matters." He braced his fists against the shelf either side of her hips. "Perhaps I could do as is the custom with your plantation men, relieve myself on women who have no say in the matter, slave women."

Her hand met his cheek with a resounding slap.

His eyes smoldered at her, as though she'd been the one who'd made the vile suggestion, as though slapping him had been the wrong reaction. It had been.

The moment the crackling anger shattered from her eyes, Royce knew he'd pushed her too far. But she'd offered him Sarah as though she'd expected him to be grateful for her consent, as though he and Sarah were a pair of rutting swine and she the sty master. Bondage had fitted his ego with a hair-trigger and Megan McCall had tripped it.

And he'd tripped one of hers. She'd flinched when he'd called her husband a boy.

He prodded, testing, his voice yet gruff with indignation. "Do you really think I'd use a woman against her will?"

She jerked her chin once side to side, rippling the air currents between them.

At least she didn't believe the worst of him. That eased his pique, eased him enough that a smile played at the corners of his mouth. "How about that, Princess?" he said, his voice husky in his throat. "We've got something in common."

Her fingers shifted on the edge of the stone shelf on which she sat, brushing the sides of his. She went still, save for the flicking of her wide eyes. It would be easy to kiss her, what with her breathlessly parted lips only inches from his and her watery eyes huge with longing.

"Did your husband use force? Is that how he failed you?"

She pulled her hands into her lap and stared at them. He crooked a damp knuckle under her lean jaw and forced her spare chin upward. She kept her eyes shuttered away behind their heavy lashes...at first. But he brushed the backs of his fingers down the column of her throat. Her eyelids flew open, revealing eyes filled with surprise, passion, and fear. She blinked.

"We've done enough exercising for today, Mr. Devlin," she said in the autocratic tone she used whenever she meant business.

Or, as he'd just learned, she used when he tread too near the woman behind the stiff, black and white facade. Whatever Peter Tallmadge's betrayal, it hadn't been anything as common as defiling slave women. The depth of ache peeking out from behind the thick, black lashes told Royce that what hurt Megan McCall cut deeper than flesh or ego...or husband dead too soon.

***

The afternoon sun angled through the bedchamber window and across the daybed where Megan reclined. It was a comforting heat. And Jaisy's keen hands kneading her leg relaxed muscles that had tensed for reason other than exertion.

"Why you send dat man away when he not done wit' his work?" Jaisy asked, spurring a spasm of remembrance down Megan's calf.

Because, in the final moments before she'd ended the session in the river, she'd wanted Royce Devlin to occupy himself with her. Not that she'd admit any such thing to Jaisy.

"Sometimes he wearies me with his demands," she answered vaguely.

Not at all a lie.

"And what does dat man demand of you?"

A flush climbed her throat where Royce Devlin had brushed her with his knuckles. "He's restless. He wants more than my transporting and exercising for occupation."

"And you do not find him trustworthy enough?"

"I do not want him otherwise occupied when I need him."

Frown lines creased Jaisy's brow beneath her orange turban. "You should not want to keep this man so close at hand."

"I didn't say I wanted to keep him close to me. I just want him available whenever I need his services. For God's sake, Jaisy, tending me is the primary reason I bought up his papers."

Jaisy worked her strong fingers up Megan's thigh. "He disturbs you."

"Hardly."

Jaisy lifted her turbaned head and peered at her mistress through knowing, amber eyes. "Do not lie to your Jaisy. No one know better dan I what harm one man can do."

"Royce Devlin is no threat."

"He more threat dan any man because he touch you here." Jaisy flattened her hand over Megan's abdomen.

Vehemently, Megan shook her head. "He never -- "

"And when he touch you here -- " Jaisy thumped the tips of two fingers against the center of Megan's chest. " -- he will own you heart and soul."

"Never."

"You do not know. You were a child wit' de last one. Dis one bring out de woman in you. Your Jaisy sees."

"What you see is colored by your own fears, my dearest friend. And you needn't be concerned. If anything, anything happens to me again, you and your family will be free. The legal documents that will enforce my wishes are in Judge Telfair's safe hands and the coin for your passages to a free port already entrusted to your hand. Keep it safe."

Jaisy patted the space between her own breasts where a cord strung around her neck disappeared. "I keep it where no man touches me."

Guilt stabbed through Megan's heart. "Dunn is your husband. I shouldn't keep you from his bed."

"I make my choice long before I take de room next to yours."

"And Dunn?"

"He hasn't de faith. He should believe in you."

Megan shuddered. "Don't talk about me as though I were a god. I'm a mere mortal woman and mortals make mistakes."

The rattle of harnessing echoed up off the road and trees outside the bedchamber window. Jaisy jumped to her feet and Megan turned. But the maid teetered between daybed and window, staring at her mistress's legs. "Miss Megawn, look at yourself."

Megan glanced from the window beyond her reach to where the skirt of a fresh chemise draped her knees. The fabric fell past her knees toward the floor...where her feet settled.

She'd swung her legs off of the bed, by her own momentum, without thought. Gathering up Jaisy's hands, Megan gave them a squeeze. "The exercises are working! I will walk again, dear friend. And when I do, I won't need him anymore. I won't need you either. You will be free to leave Virginia."

Men's voices lifted on the dusty air seeping in through the open window. Jaisy frowned. "I pray it will be so."

Recognizing one of the voices, Megan's nerve endings jerked to attention. "Quickly, fetch a gown for me, a good one."

***

"Gor, loo' at it." Sarah bobbed on her toes at the kitchen window. "'Tis the finest coach and four I seen since the Duke of Windsor's near run me down in the streets of London."

Jep was already on his feet. "Miz Megan's going to want to be brought down, Mr. Royce."

Fast as his aged legs could carry him, Jep headed for the butler's pantry. Royce rose from the bench alongside the large table that doubled as the house servants' dining table, his fingers still looped through the handle of a pewter cup.

"Who's all the fuss over, Ester?" Royce asked of the dark girl peering over Sarah's head out the window.

"It's Mr. Lyttle's coach."

The rim of the cup stilled against Royce's lips. He'd almost forgotten about finding Lyttle in Hillhouse's library the night he arrived. He'd almost forgotten that his mistress had taunted her cousin in front of the tailor's shop about Lyttle proposing to her first.

He'd almost forgotten how, during their ride home, she'd defended the man's gentlemanly virtues.

Suddenly, Royce hadn't any taste for the apple cider sloshing toward his mouth. Slamming the cup down on the table, he muttered, "Then I'd best hurry. There'll be hell to pay if our mistress is kept waiting."

Royce's long strides took him quickly from the kitchen, through the library, and across the hall where Jep, waiting at the landside door for the knocker, fussed over his livery. Three steps at a time, Royce climbed the broad stairway to the first door on the second floor, Megan McCall's bedchamber door.

He struck the solid wood with white knuckles. "You have a caller."

"I'm dressing. Wait there."

She sounded breathless. Because Peyton Lyttle came calling?

Royce crossed his arms over his chest and slumped back against the doorframe. For all the slurs she'd flung at him about gentlemen, the one she should be wary of was Peyton Lyttle.

The sounds of rustling fabric and harried voices seeped out of the room behind him. Only one intact line escaped the solid walls. "I mustn't keep Peyton waiting."

She mustn't? Royce shuddered to think of what saving grace the man possessed that turned a woman as stoic and self-sufficient as Megan McCall into a blithering female?

"More hair pins," she demanded. "Hurry!"

"Mustn't keep Master Lyttle waiting," Royce grumbled under his breath.

"He'll forgive tardiness in a lady," her voice buzzed through the wood barrier between them. "But not a sloppy head."

Her vanity ate away at his compassion for the woman who'd been betrayed and damaged beyond the scars visible to the eye. He had to stop rising to the aid of distressed females. Look what aiding Sarah had netted him.

The door swung open behind his shoulder. He straightened, turned, and found a glaring Jaisy. "She ready for you now."

The Mistress of Hillhouse sat on the edge of the daybed, her feet flat on the floor in front of her. Sunlight from the window behind her haloed her uptucked ebony hair and outlined her pale as porcelain neck. The black taffeta gown she wore, though yet demurely squared well above cleavage, showed more of the widow than any previous gown had.

He wanted to condemn her for the vanity that prompted her into the less demure gown. He wanted to rebuke her for fussing the glorious, heavy locks of her hair into prim confinement. He wanted to harangue her about rouging lips already the blushing shade of a rose. He scooped her up.

The gown's slick fabric slid over his arms and spilled down his thighs. Her gasp of surprise popped open her ruby red lips.

"Carefully, Mr. Devlin. I'd like to accept my guest looking more dignified than if I'd just raced willy-nilly across some wind-swept moor."

He bit back his preference for the kind of woman who would run into a man's arms, her hair streaming behind her, her cheeks blushed by wind, exertion, and desire. Instead, he leveled, "You look every inch the prim and proper widow."

The angle of her eyes hovered somewhere south of his clenched jaw and the levity of her voice sounded forced. "Off to the library then."

But, outside of the library door, she flattened her hand against his chest just below his throat. In spite of the layers of cloth, in spite of her light touch, the impact of each finger struck him like so many pebbles against a window pane, stopping him in mid- reach. She glanced between him and the closed door, the pink tip of her tongue darting across her red lips. "Don't mention the exercises."

The promise of the hand weighting his shirtfront crumbled like a sand castle tower washed by waves. "Does Mr. Lyttle often engage your beasts of burden in conversation?"

She shot him a repentant look, her fingers curling back from his chest. "I-I meant, just in case the topic comes up."

"Is the man blind?"

"N-no. Why do you ask?"

"Because he'd have to be not to notice the glow a week of activity in the sun has put in your cheeks."

She uncurled her fingertips against her cheek. "My cheeks glow?"

She asked the question with such uncertainty that it made him question his opinion of her vanity. She must have read the quizzical look in his face as she said, "I've avoided mirrors for a very long time."

He wanted to tell her she could stop hiding from the pained, pale invalid. That woman was fast disappearing.

"We must hope Peyton doesn't notice the color in my cheeks," she murmured distractedly.

The mention of his nemesis' name dashed the last sand-sculpted wall of a fanciful hope. The reality was, behind the invalid resided nothing more than the plantation princess he'd expected Megan McCall to be.

"I do so want it to be a surprise if -- when I walk again."

"I'll say nothing of the exercises," he pledged, his tone rife with an undercurrent far removed from obeisance. "You have my word as a gentleman and a pirate."

Before she could say anything, he threw open the library door.

As he had been the evening Royce first walked into Hillhouse's library, Peyton Lyttle occupied the wingback chair angled away from the entrance. But this time, the planter jumped at the door slamming open against the inside wall. But, ever the man of impeccable manners, Lyttle quickly composed himself and rose as Royce carried Megan to the settee. Royce withdrew. Lyttle brushed his lips against her brow.

She peered up at the planter with such hopefulness that a pang of compassion twisted through Royce in spite of who it was her eyes sought. "Do you bring me good news, Peyton?"

Lyttle tsked. "Such a lovely head to be plagued by business."

"And flushed," sounded a female voice from the far corner between the writing table and bookshelves.

"Cornelia Mae," Megan greeted with far less than enthusiasm.

Cornelia Mae Lyttle sashayed around the desk toward the fireplace, toward Royce. "But then, I would be flushed too if a handsome man carried me into a room."

She smiled ruefully and reached past Royce for one of the glasses on Jep's tray, her multi-petticoated skirt swishing against his shins. Though Megan McCall had never stood before him, he knew instinctually that she wasn't as tall as her cousin. That she'd have to strain onto her tiptoes and he bow his head to accommodate any pouty lips she lifted his way.

Unlike the cousin whose cocked chin hovered near his, she could touch her over- rouged lips to his without any help from him. She trailed the knuckle of one heavily ringed finger along his forearm.

"Peyton came to talk business with your mistress." The woman lathed the last word with innuendo, drawing a dark glance from her husband. "And business does so bore me."

Cornelia tossed Megan a sly glance. "Peyton says my boredom with business is among my most endearing assets."

The cousin's faded-blue gaze climbed back up Royce's frame. "Perhaps I could borrow your man for a walk in the garden."

Royce held his breath. He'd instigate all out mutiny if she tossed him into the clutches of her lusting cousin.

Megan eyed the scant space between her cousin and Royce Devlin. She didn't have time to deal with Cornelia's needling. She needed to hear what Peyton had come to say. The future of Shea McCall Shipbuilding hung on the news he brought.

Maybe her cousin was just what Royce Devlin needed to vent some of his restlessness. Maybe she should let the two of them scuttle off together. Maybe then her own attraction to the man would be eradicated.

But what came out of her mouth was, "Too much sun will ruin your fashionable pallor, Corny, and my garden is hopelessly tangled." Through a sugary smile she added, "Peyton also likes his ladies fashionable."

Megan caught Royce Devlin's glower. Didn't he want to be rescued from a circling barracuda?

Or maybe he didn't recognize the danger to him. She hadn't readily realized Royce Devlin's attempt to protect her the day Cornelia Mae had provoked her beyond control. Unless he still thought her jealous of her cousin. In all their twenty year history, she'd never envied Cornelia.

Not until the cousin gave birth to a healthy child.

Not until she walked while Megan didn't.

Not until Cornelia Mae tried to sink her hooks into Royce Devlin.

As much as she wanted to tell Royce Devlin that her cousin possessed nothing she wanted, she couldn't. Royce Devlin would spot the lie. He'd done so on the bluff when he'd glanced at her then lifeless legs, pointedly reminding her she'd never turn a graceful leg to the pleasure of many a man's eye.

Not that she should care what a black-hearted pirate thought. She didn't have time to worry whether or not he'd seen through her motives. Curse Royce Devlin's opinion of her anyway. The success of the ship she built depended upon Peyton's news.

She peered up at her mother's long-time friend, at the man who'd once courted her. "Is it to be a toast we drink today, Peyton?"

Peyton pursed his copious lips. "Better that you give up this ship building nonsense. It's no business for a lady."

The flame of hope inside of Megan's heart shuddered and sputtered. "You didn't find a buyer for my ship, then."

***

Royce paced the night-blackened grass between Hillhouse and river. Megan McCall was building on speculation. That meant no contracted buyer. No contracted buyer meant no one with whom to share the burden of expenses. No shared expenses meant vast outlay without income on the builder's part.

"No builder in his right mind builds a ship on speculation," Royce muttered into a breeze that smelled of salt and storm.

"No builder in her right mind," he repeated, zeroing in on what might well be fact. The plantation princess might not be as adept as he'd thought. She might not be in her right mind.

The damp boards of the dock creaked beneath his bare feet. He lifted his face toward the moonlit horizon, where the notorious bluff loomed black and deadly. The thought of a horse and carriage careening off its edge raised the hairs along the backs of his arms. The idea of someone intentionally causing such horror shivered up his spine. The possibility that the driver had been Megan McCall, the woman who owned his future, chilled him to the core.

But, if the crash had been an accident...

It didn't matter. Fault bore its own brand of madness. A woman whose reckless driving had cost her the life of her newborn child had to suffer wrenching guilt. He knew how guilt could ravage a soul. Had hers destroyed her mind as well?

The answer seemed to loom before him in the form of a night-blackened bluff. Unable to face that edifice a moment longer, Royce spun away from the end of the dock. If he was going to save himself from a mad woman, he had a letter to write.

He got as far as the Entry Hall when the ominous words that had dogged him all his adult life whispered between his ears like the omen they were proving to be. There will come a day when you'll have to admit that you need me.

He paused on the threshold of the library as though another solution might strike him in the eleventh hour. As though the whisperings in his head might offer a way for him to free himself from one woman without subjugating himself to the other.

But he couldn't conjure a surer way out of this mess than by pleading his case to the one person he'd sworn never to contact. Unless he didn't plead but rather made an offer.

Royce strode into the room, lit the candle on the corner of the writing table, and spread a clean sheet of paper across the surface. In the tremulous light off the quivering candle flame, he stroked the ink-laden tip of a pen across the paper; the words he wrote like scars on the white page.

Dear Madam...

CHAPTER TWELVE

Royce scoured the smell of turpentine from his hands in the basin outside of the kitchen door. Megan McCall had given in to his request for occupation, if only to do a little mending or painting around the plantation house. She'd also hustled them into Norfolk the morning after Lyttle's visit, where she'd had him squire her up and down the waterfront. He took advantage of her renewed search for a buyer to seek out a vessel heading south by which he could send his letter.

Though the lure of the docked Caribbean trader had proven more tempting than he'd anticipated. He could easily have hoisted a bale onto his shoulder, climbed the gangway, and lost himself in one of her holds. Why hadn't he done just that when a myriad of mishaps could befall him before his letter reached the hands of its recipient, when he had no assurance the suggestion he'd inked in that missive would even be acted upon?

Because the last time he ran, it had taken him half a lifetime to rebuild his life. And he didn't have another half lifetime to spare.

Even if the alternative meant he might well be left at the mercy of a mad woman, and Megan McCall had to be mad to build on speculation. She had to be mad to build a ship of unproven design.

Unless she truly believed in what she'd created. Which she seemed to when she'd defended her design against his claim that her vessel's hull was too narrow.

Royce worked the soap between his hands into a lather. He knew about taking risks. He'd left a secure prospect for an uncertain future of his own making. He'd laid down a decade of earnings to buy his first ship. He'd run his share of embargoed cargo and counted his mounting assets.

All of which were now impounded by the English judiciary. A lot of good his risk taking had earned him.

Meanwhile, Megan McCall even argued against his suggestion that she make use of her idle sawmill, refusing to trust its operation to anyone other than Dunn, whom she needed in the shipyard. It was sheer stupidity for anyone in dire need of cash to disregard the income off a mill in country where sawmills were in demand. Though Megan McCall's handling of Mannie the Smith and her habit of keeping a pistol close at hand proved her to be anything but stupid. Madness then, or stubbornness against the counsel of a man she considered a pirate.

Roughly, Royce scrubbed his lathered hands up his naked flanks into his armpits and over the back of his neck. Mad or not, he wasn't about to risk giving Megan McCall any excuse to reverse her decision to let him occupy himself. She'd warned him that if he became aromatic or soiled one of her gowns by his grimy touch, his physical labors were done.

The threat was as consistent as any she'd issued to him. And her presentations to prospective buyers were well thought out and without a note of desperation. Nor did her mood darken or her actions turn irrational. Maybe she wasn't mad either.

Royce flung the murky contents of the wash basin into the road, shrugged his shirt down over his damp shoulders, and strode along the dirt lane from which he surveyed the gleaming white shutters he'd painted with James' help. The boy had proven an eager helpmate, scrambling up and down ladders and over scaffolding like he'd been born to it. The boy belonged at his father's side, apprenticing the trade of shipwright. But slaves had no say in their futures.

And what about him? Did he, with his paler skin, stand any better chance of gaining freedom? Without wealth enough to bribe his way free of unjust charges, he had no more say in his destiny than the mistress of a failed plantation.

Maybe that was why, in his letter, he hadn't asked to be rescued. Maybe the fact that Megan McCall was as much at the mercy of life's elements was why the concession he'd requested more directly benefited her than him. She needed his help, whether she knew it or not. Whether she'd admit it or not.

And him, what did he need?

"Afternoon, Mista Royce."

Royce pivoted toward the family graveyard on the far side of the road at the edge of the oak shaded flower garden that had seen far better days, toward the familiar, coffee- brown face beaming at him from the midst of three newer grave markers. "Afternoon to you too, Jep."

Royce made his way through the snarled growth of seasons past and present to the first of the three stones still bearing the stone mason's sharpest chisel marks. He fingered the vines strangling the stone into which had been chiseled Peter Tallmadge's name and the date of the fatal crash that had taken his life and shattered the bones of his beautiful, young bride.

Jep nodded at the small marker he cleared of vines. "This here be the fourth generation, the last generation of this family I will tend." His smile faded and he shook his head. "Saddens me that this be the only way I can tend the young master, him gone with his grandmama before he even drew his first breath."

Royce flattened his palm over the knot of vines that all but obliterated Peter Tallmadge's grave marker. "Gone with his grandmother? Not with the father who died the same night?"

Jep bowed his head over the tiny grave. "Angel's fetch babies to heaven, Mista Royce. Not devils."

Royce wasn't about to argue again with Jep over his loyalty to the current mistress of Hillhouse. But he did take note of the angelic grandmother's date of death. "Imperia Hill McCall died only months before the carriage crash?"

Almost reverently, Jep laid aside the weed he held. "Miz Imperia collapsed the minute the preacher announced Miz Megan wed."

"Did your Miss Imperia disapprove that much of the match her daughter made?"

Jep jabbed the trowel into the ground, his velvety voice raising with a clipped edge Royce had never heard before. "Miz Megan don't pick that boy for a husband."

So Megan McCall's marriage was no love match.

"Her father's choice?"

Jep twisted the trowel in the loamy soil. "Capt'n McCall already gone when that boy darkened Hillhouse's doorstep. Was Miz Imperia who said the young mistress gotta marry right then."

"Then dropped dead when the deed was done," Royce reiterated.

The old man's hand stilled on the trowel handle and the lines in his aged face sagged. "Losing the capt'n done broke Miz Imperia's heart. That's what killed her."

Royce raised an eyebrow. "Yet she insisted her daughter marry before a proper mourning period had passed."

"Was a time that tried the souls of the best of men."

"And ate through the senses of a pair of plantation bred princesses," Royce grumbled.

Sitting back on his heels, Jep peered up at him. "They was blind with their grief."

Or crazed by it, thought Royce, realizing that Megan McCall had lost every member of her family in the space of a year. He eyed the old family retainer. "Has the daughter much of her mother in her?"

"She got more her daddy's constitution." Jep sat back on his heels and chuckled. "Had it been up to her, Miz Megan would have searched every pirate's cove for sign of the Capt'n."

"What would she know about pirate hiding places?"

Jep swept the trowel through the air. "The Capt'n taught his girl all his privateering tricks."

Royce stiffened. "Privateering? Did you say privateering?"

"Yes, sir, Mista Royce. That's -- "

"I know what privateering is," Royce howled, every frayed nerve ending of the past months screaming. "That's what a gentleman calls his pirating!"

***

Royce Devlin's shadow passing the library windows hadn't been the first distraction he'd presented Megan this morning. Her ear had honed on his voice as he and James had whitewashed the shutters. She should have been annoyed by their noise while she figured how next to stretch her inadequate funds to cover bills due. Instead, she'd been charmed by the light banter of a man and boy working side by side.

And when the job was completed and Royce strolled off, she'd pushed her chair back from the writing table toward the windows. Royce Devlin's prescribed exercises had built enough strength into her legs for her to be able to do that.

Megan kicked her legs out in front of herself and tapped her toes up the leg of the table...just because she could. She could accomplish that small maneuver because of Royce Devlin's ministering. If not for him, her limbs would still be twisted and useless. If not for him, Peyton's inability to find her a buyer for her ship might well have been the final blow to her floundering attempts at independence.

Gratitude swelled in her chest. It was the one safe emotion she allowed herself where the man was concerned. He was still a convicted pirate with his own purposes.

And, he was presently storming toward the house from the direction of the family cemetery.

Loathe to be caught at the window like some puerile girl awaiting a beau, Megan grabbed the arms of the chair and lurched forward. The slam of the back door covered the thump of the chair legs across the floor. The library door swung open without preamble. Megan snatched up her pen and crooked her elbow against the table edge as though he'd caught her in mid cipher. Too late, she realized she held the pen upside down.

But Royce Devlin didn't so much as bat an eyelash when she twirled the pen writing point down between her fingers. Nor did he advance in spite of the swiftness with which he'd crossed the yard and the blast of his blown-in entrance. He just stood there, across the room from her like a ship in full sail hanging on the crest of an ebb tide. He clearly had something on his mind. Why didn't he just speak?

"You wanted something, Mr. Devlin?" she prompted.

The eyes bright as a piece of copper catching the late day sun narrowed. He moved, but not toward her. Like a predator circling upwind of his prey, he kept to the perimeter of the room, pausing when he reached the fireplace.

"She's a handsome vessel," he said, though he hadn't glanced at the model on the mantelpiece.

"She was my father's favorite," Megan responded neutrally.

A slow smile pulled across his lips. "No doubt. Beauty deceptive as hers would distract any man. He wouldn't see her closing on him until it was too late."

They were talking about the ship, weren't they?

"Suddenly she'd be broadside of him, up close," he continued, "her cannons aimed at his belly, reducing him to the prey he was."

Megan glanced between the model of The Imperia and Royce Devlin's unwavering gaze. A nervous laugh escaped her. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were talking about a woman."

Emotion rippled across his darkening eyes. "It's time for your exercises," he said, his voice oddly, ominously tight.

***

He'd meant to storm into the library and confront her about her father being a pirate when she'd flung that very title like a curse in his face at every turn. He'd meant to demand apology. He'd meant to make her admit that the father she revered had practiced the very profession for which she cursed him.

But, the minute he saw her seated not quite close enough to her desk, her blasted pen upside down in her hand and her face a poorly constructed mask of feigned surprise, he knew he wanted more. He wanted her to admit to the passion he'd more than once glimpsed in her tumultuous eyes.

Leaning against one of the boulders partitioning the tiny pool where she circled her legs, the lapping waves plastering the thin cloth of her chemise to the undersides of her breasts, he was even more certain she deserved to be exposed as the plantation bred femme fatale that she was. He had no doubt she'd intentionally changed from her heavier, winter weight garment into the summer shift she wore now.

Megan peeked at Royce through her lowered lashes. He watched her back, a predatory look in those rusty eyes of his. She should be wary. Instead, she kept thinking about how, in the library in front of the model of The Imperia, he'd spoken of being broadsided. More than ever, she believed he'd been talking about a woman. And she thought she knew how that woman figured in his life. Megan let a slow smile curl across her lips. "Where'd you learn your miraculous skills of restoration, Mr. Devlin?"

His scowl deepened. "Where is of no importance."

"I'm curious," she puckered. "Indulge me."

His coppery eyes glided back and forth in their slit openings like well-oiled ball bearings. "All you need to know about me is in my papers."

"Such as your background in piracy?"

A low growl rumbled in his throat. The purely male sound vibrated through Megan, cautioning her. She chose what she thought was a neutral topic, a subject more apt to draw out Royce Devlin. "Your papers also list a more than casual acquaintance with the southern waters."

"Are those the seas your father sailed?" he shot back.

"Among others." She studied his bare, broad shoulders. "Did you learn to swim in the warm waters of the Caribbean?"

"How is it you know those waters are warm? Something your father told you?"

"I've dipped my toes into the turquoise sea myself."

"Was that during the Seven Years War?"

"You mean dipping my toes into Caribbean waters?"

He nodded, his jaw rigid as granite. What was he hiding?

"Father thought it more prudent to leave mother and me at home during the war with the French and the Indians."

His eyes darkened. "Too many pirates afloat?"

Was he teasing her? She gave him a sly look. "If I had sailed with him, might I have found you a young man playing in tepid waters?"

"Aren't you more curious whether or not you'd have found me plying the ignoble profession of pirate?"

"Is that a confession?"

He came through the water at her like a shark on a blood scent. His hands clamped her waist, jolting a gasp from her. "How'd you like to try out your swimming muscles?"

He hovered so close she had to crane her neck in order to see into his face. "Only if you tell me where you learned to swim."

"Where I learned is none of your concern."

"Everything about you concerns me," she murmured, no longer smiling. "You sleep in the room above mine. We are alone with each other a good part of the day. I place my safety in your hands every time we enter this river."

He dragged her off the stone ledge and pulled her so close he completely blocked the sun from her face. "You weren't lying about being able to swim, were you?"

She clutched his arms just above their elbows for balance and stared into eyes that no longer caught the sun but glittered with a lethal light of their own. "I never lie."

"Of course not." The breath from his parting lips stroked her temple and careened the inward curls of her ear. "You said your father taught you to swim, didn't you?"

She nodded. "Who taught you?"

He didn't answer. He just towed her out of the protective curl of the boulders partitioning the pool from the full force of the river. Instinctively, Megan's toes strained for the river bottom. They didn't reach.

He saw the panic flash at the edge of her eyes. He didn't want to see her vulnerability, not when she'd baited him with coy smiles and sultry looks.

He spun her around, her spine molding to his chest, his belly, and his rock-hard arousal. Damn her. He tightened his grip on her arms. "Tell me, Princess, did your father toss you into the brink and command that you swim lest you sink? Did he cast you adrift? Leave you floundering?"

Megan could smell the chicory on his breath from the coffee he'd drunk with his mid- day meal. She could hear the frenetic beat of his heart and feel his rigid flesh pressed against her backside. Megan was shocked and enthralled at the same time. Shock made her probe for the inane.

"Is that how your father taught you?"

"My father taught me only one thing in life," he snarled, his throaty growl rumbling against the back of her ear, "and it had nothing to do with swimming."

"Which was?"

"How to deal with a woman of deception."

"Deception?" She lifted her face toward her shoulder, toward him. But he flipped her onto her belly.

Megan flailed her arms, battling to keep her face above water, sputtering, "Are you trying to drown me?"

He jerked her up onto her feet, but held her in his shadow. "If I was the pirate you claim me to be, I'd have taken that pleasure long ago."

"Pleasure?" Megan's heart stuttered. Royce Devlin had been burned bad by a woman. Megan would have bet her heart on it. Maybe she was.

He gave her a shake when what he wanted to do was break her lovely, long neck. When what he wanted to do was plunge his traitorous male flesh into her womanly heat. Damn thin fabrics that grew transparent when wetted. Damn the creator for putting a quick mind and imperious disposition into an angel's body.

"Damn you, woman! You curse me as a pirate when your own father was no better."

Surprise widened the sea-blue eyes. "My father was no pirate. He was a privateer."

"Privateer or pirateer, there is no difference."

Her delicate eyebrows hitched dubious arches high onto her flawless brow. "One major difference. Privateering is legal."

"Not since the end of the French Indian War."

"Which is when my father ended his occupation as a privateer. You should have done likewise."

"I did."

"Not according to a London court."

"I was betrayed."

Her pupils flared. "By a woman?"

Like a marauder who'd come slipping through the fog, her question raked his undefended bow. His stomach muscles tightened. He growled. "Like you, I trusted the wrong gentleman."

Her eyes narrowed. "I think it was a woman."

"It was a man who shipped his pirated cargo in the hold of my ship. No woman."

She shook her head. "The betrayal that haunts you comes from an old scar, one that has had time to fester, one from a cut that goes far deeper than a business deal gone bad."

He could stop her infuriating prying by flinging back at her that the gentleman who'd deceived him had been her beloved Peyton. But that would give her only one more reason to doubt a man she called pirate, for she'd never believe the worst of a man she named friend.

Her sweet voice invaded with the ease of a traitorous wench slipping into his bed. "Only love cuts that deeply. Did you leave a woman behind in the Caribbean? Was she the one upon whom you learned to manipulate life back into damaged limbs?

"Enough!" he roared, his control worn threadbare. "I learned my skills at manipulating injured limbs on my brother."

Relief rippled through Megan. No woman. A brother.

But, like the backflash off a fired cannon, that elation clouded her senses. She didn't read the message etched in the lines straining at the corners of his eyes and mouth. She didn't heed the warnings her own body buzzed when his fingers loosened from her upper arms. She was too energized.

Megan pushed off from Royce's chest and reached back through the powerful current of the river. No woman. A brother.

Her sudden departure pulled Royce from the despair of deeds past and done that could never be changed. Never mind that she had slipped under his defenses and dragged into daylight one of his worst sins. Megan McCall was swimming towards the falls.

Royce waded through the sharply deepening river after her, shouting, "You're not strong enough to swim off on your own yet."

"I'm stronger than you think, Royce Devlin," she called, rolling onto her stomach and stretching out, her dark hair skimming the water like the fin of a sleek Marlin.

"Damn it, Megan! Get back here!"

Had he called her by her Christian name? With the roar of the falls filling her ears, it was hard to tell. Megan pulled up short of the falls and tread water.

"Stay there," he shouted. "I'm coming after you."

But Megan wasn't ready to give up the newfound freedom the buoyancy of the river gave her. For the first time since the crash, she wasn't limited by physical defect. For the first time in a very long time, she felt the spirit of the girl she'd been.

He was yards from her, yet Royce swore he could see each drop of water captured in her dipping lashes. She rolled away from him, one chemise sleeve slipping, her drenched locks shimmering over her bare shoulder. For a moment, desire won out over warning. Then she plunged into the backwash off the falls, and he was blinded by the resulting sun-splattered spray.

Royce dove toward the falls. By the time he reached the spot where she'd somersaulted out of sight, she hadn't surfaced.

Panic ripped through him. He dove into the rapids, searching the deep channel for catches where she might be trapped. He battled the turbulence, feeling for soft flesh pinned against hard rock. He porpoised into the air, gasping for breath. He was about to dive again when a pale, slim arm beckoned him from the nearby wall of water.

He lunged through the falls and discovered an undercut aeons of watershed had carved from the stone ridge. Beneath the overhang upon the underlying ledge, knelt his mistress.

He pulled himself onto his knees before her. She looked entirely too bemused. Never mind that her dark tresses streamed down her throat, over her shoulders, and into the cleavage between dusky tipped breasts.

"Are you crazy?" he howled. "You could have drowned!"

Whatever he said, Megan couldn't hear. Not with the waterfall drumming down about them. But he looked absolutely livid. And quite beleaguered. She hadn't meant to worry him.

Though she found the throbbing vein at his temple more amusing than she should have. And the way his mouth puckered and spread without her being able to hear a single note of what he said triggered an irrational giggle.

The laughter that Royce could not hear, that he could only see puffing apart Megan's lips and jiggling her perfectly round breasts with their dark tips tenting her drenched chemise told him how utterly futile his lecture had been. Angry, embarrassed, and aroused beyond caring, Royce grabbed her by her mirth-racked shoulders and shook her.

Her mouth slacked. But her eyes yet twinkled. He cursed her; yet, couldn't resist stroking his thumb once along the ridge of her collarbone.

She dropped her head to one side, toward his thumb, toward the hand he rested on her bare shoulder where the sleeve of her chemise had slipped from her shoulder. He skimmed the knuckle of his forefinger up the side of her neck.

Her lashes drifted down over eyes that seemed to have grown dreamy. He threaded his fingers through the dark angel's leaden tresses. The base of her skull fit as though custom tailored to his hand. The pink tip of her tongue slid from one corner of her mouth to the other.

He brushed his lips along that newly dampened trail. A velvet buzz, those lips, inciting another stroke and another and another until, lost in their lush lure he tested their parting seam with the tip of his own tongue.

The sharp intake of her breath was like a siren call across his lips. He sank into her.

Her tongue fluttered against the thrust of his. He splayed his fingers across her shoulder blades and down the tracks of her spine. He trailed them around her narrow waist and up the flare of her ribs. He cupped her breasts and swept the pads of his thumbs over the rock hard summits of her nipples. She cried out against his mouth.

He opened eyes he hadn't remembered closing and found her sea-blue set wide as an ocean horizon. What in God's name was he doing?

Tearing his mouth from her lips and his hands from her breasts, he dove back through the waterfall.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Royce punched his arms through the backwash off the falls. He punched them through the turbulence and the currents. He punched his way through his misdirected lust.

What had he been thinking? The widow McCall wore mourning drab from her chin to her toes as a deterrent and railed against rutting men.

But the woman he'd found beneath the waterfall hadn't protested. Veiled in semi- transparent cloth and untethered tresses, she'd arched to his touch and gasped from his kiss.

Or had her ruby lips whispered something other than invitation?

If so, he knew what he had to do. But first, he drove himself against the punishing power of the rapids at mid-river. He drove himself until his pumping arms and legs drained every last drop of blood from his traitorous manhood. Only then did he swim toward shore and drag himself up onto the rocks where she now sat with her knees drawn up to her chin.

Sunlight danced among her fallen tresses and glimmered off the diaphanous shroud of her drenched chemise. She looked half temptress, half wide-eyed innocent.

He strode quickly past her, snatched up the drying blanket and dropped it over her shoulders. She flinched, her narrow shoulders hunching beneath the wool blanket.

He wanted to smooth away their tension. He wanted to lift her face in his hands, look her in the eye, and tell her she had nothing to fear from him.

But she'd never believe him. She believed he was a thieving pirate and a man with the uncontrollable urges of his gender. She'd welcome no touch from him, not now.

He curled his fingers into the palms of his hands until his nails cut through the calluses there, until his knuckles ached, until the pain and tension focused him on the only thing he could say to her. "You were right about my inability to control what you so aptly described as male needs. I beg your forgiveness and promise never to touch you in a familiar manner again."

She didn't so much as glance up at him. All she said was, "You can send Jaisy for me and the carriage."

Megan heard the scuff of his shoes against the rocks behind her as he stepped into them, caught a glimpse of a white sleeve as he scooped up his shirt. But she saw and heard no more of Royce Devlin. Long moments of silence save for what nature provided passed before she peered over her shoulder and found the clearing empty. He was gone, never to touch her again.

The reality, the finality of Royce Devlin's words echoed through Megan as though she was a shell without heart or soul. With one kiss, Royce Devlin had fanned a desire in her she'd only dreamt of, a desire that had pulled her landowner mother and seaman father together in spite of their differences, a desire for which she'd meant to save herself body and soul.

But she'd wedded Peter Tallmadge instead.

And been miserably repaid for marrying a man she didn't love. Never being touched again was the greatest sacrifice of widow's weeds. Never being touched again was the cost of being independent of any man.

Never being touched again was the price of a useless virtue.

For whom did she save herself now? A widow too damaged to walk or bear another child couldn't hope to attract another husband. Even the worthless sort wouldn't give her a second look, cash poor as she was. Royce Devlin had proven that.

Megan stared into the rough water mid-stream, searching for escape in the rapids racing for the sea. But she saw only the dashing power of Royce Devlin's muscles rippling beneath his skin. She clutched the blanket close, only for the brush of the rough cloth over her shoulders to remind her of the stroke of his callused hands. She sucked a breath, only to recall the whisper of Royce's tongue slipping between her lips and teeth, mimicking the deeper union they both wanted.

And they both had wanted to surrender to the basests of needs. She was woman enough to recognize that much.

But realization of what they were on the brink of succumbing to had startled her. The same realization seemed to have jolted him. Royce's stricken face as he'd pulled back from her, as he'd scrambled out of the cave and away from her, loomed before Megan.

Why had he fled? Did she remind him too much of a woman he'd once loved, or not enough? Had she acted too wantonly or not wanton enough? Was he repulsed by the idea of making love to a cripple?

Tears stung Megan's eyes. She rolled onto one hip, away from the drumming falls, away from a sky so blue it hurt her eyes. A small pool of water caught among the rocks reflected back at her. With her wet hair plastered to her head and the drab blanket clutched to her chin, she caught sight of the forbidding widow everyone else saw, Royce Devlin saw.

Curse him for sampling her and finding her lacking. Curse him his self control and his high opinion of himself. Thought himself too good for a scullery maid and a crippled widow, did he?

And damn herself for still wanting him.

Megan rubbed her chin against the scratchy wool tucked under her chin. She'd play no fool for a black hearted scoundrel. She'd show Royce Devlin the woman beneath the widow's garb he'd spurned. She'd give him a sample of what he'd rejected, then she'd deny him just as he had her.

***

Slowly, Royce climbed the stairs toward the loft office. Megan McCall had arrived at the shipyard earlier this morning wearing a blue gown. He'd been on the highest scaffolding at the bow of the ship. So Dunn had lifted her down from her phaeton and carried her up to her office. And ever since, Royce had battled the nagging suspicion that the hue of her dress was the same deep sea-blue as her eyes.

Royce stepped into the office and faced Megan. Sunlight streamed through the window behind her and shimmered off the slick fabric fitted to her narrow waist. As he'd suspected, the cloth cupping the twin mounds of her breasts emulated the shade of the eyes watching him. What he'd underestimated was his ability to remain unaffected by that comparison.

He lowered his gaze to the floor in front of her feet and said, "You shouldn't be standing unattended."

"I've my desk and chair to assist me."

He glanced at her hands, one braced against the squared corner of the secretary and the fingers of the other curled over the spindled back of the desk chair. The image of her dainty hand tangling between the spindles as she fell or the sweet curve at the base of her skull striking the sharp edge of the desk on the way down knotted his stomach and hardened his voice.

"Standing on your own is reckless."

"A gentleman not complimenting a lady on a new dress is reckless," she retorted, the coyness lacing her words bringing his gaze flying to her lips.

Or did he misread the enticement of her parted lips? As he must have misread the signals she'd given out beneath the waterfall when he'd threaded his fingers through her hair.

He lowered his gaze to her chin. But that only brought his eye within range of the breasts mounding above the deeply cut, square neckline of the sea-blue dress, breasts he'd weighed in the palms of his hands.

Why had she discarded her mourning weeds, today, one day after that stolen kiss?

He shifted his focus to her nose. But that defiantly upturned appendage had been among the first of her features to entice him. He catapulted his gaze past the sea-blue eyes that were bound to confound him and stared at her forehead.

Damn, but wasn't there a hint of a laugh line across that sweet expanse of flesh. Control worn thin, he snapped, "Is that a new dress you wear?"

"To you it would be," she puckered in the manner of a plantation-bred girl schooled in flirtations. "I haven't worn it in more than a year."

The dishonesty of her efforts was enough to flay the edge from the desire nettling his loins. He looked her in the eye. "Need I remind you, madam, I am no gentleman but a pirate?"

"Don't pirates take note of prettily dressed ladies?" she cooed, nonplussed.

"Pirates don't belong anywhere near ladies."

The sea-blue eyes darkened a shade, and the lips red as a sailor's moon pursed. "Don't mistake reckless for daring, Royce Devlin. You've no idea how daring I can be."

For an instant, his tongue recalled the sweet taste of her mouth, his thumbs the pebbly texture of the tips of her breasts, his groin the urging arch of her pelvis. He understood far better than she realized how daring she could be. He'd had a full sleepless night to explore all the scenarios that could evolve from his lapse in judgement beneath the falls.

He'd also not forgotten the surprise in her wide eyes when he'd touched her breasts. The young woman who'd railed against rutting men had little experience with a man's handling.

But the widow failed by her boy of a husband might have been flattered by a man's attention, none the less. And a liaison with a desperate, naive widow of marriageable age could only end in disaster. He had to make her come to the same conclusion.

"You didn't call me up here just to compliment you on your taste in gowns," he said. "You do have a less frivolous request for me, don't you?"

Megan's fingers tightened over the edge of the desk at her hip. Royce Devlin's tone was as far from flirtatious as Virginia was from China. He hadn't come one step closer since entering the loft, either. And now he sounded outright combative.

She eyed the tight fold of his arms across his chest, the set of his jaw, and the narrowing of his eyes. Such a defensive pose for a self-assured rogue.

In her mind, she replayed the moment he'd stepped into the loft, this time ignoring her own responses to the raw maleness of his thighs bunching beneath his breeches. This time she heard the sharp intake of his breath and saw the flash of hunger glitter in his coppery eyes when he'd taken in the details of her dress, of her. For just a moment, his defenses had slipped.

Megan smiled. "If you don't get over here shortly and hold me up, Mr. Devlin, you'll be peeling me off the floor."

That brought him quickly across the room. But he no more than cupped her elbows in his broad, capable hands.

She spread her fingers up his forearms. "Do you think this is enough to hold me upright?"

"You've been practicing standing long enough. It's enough."

Not to a woman who wants a man's arms around her.

"I need my blueprints spread on the table and myself moved to it." Believing he'd sweep her up in his arms and carry her to the table, she smiled and simpered, "Trying to walk on my own would be reckless."

Royce stared into eyes that gleamed like a fathomless sea beneath a cloudless sky. He'd like nothing more than to pull her against himself and watch those bright eyes cloud with passion. But he couldn't, because she was naive of what she invited, because she owned him, because she'd already distracted him, delayed him too long. He'd barely made inroads among the colonial gentry he'd met along the waterfront.

He had to divert her from her errant intentions. He tugged gently on her arms. "You've practiced the steps, too. Take one."

The whites of her eyes fluttered up at him like a flag of surrender. "Here? Now?"

"Reticence from a woman who demands to be exercised through the heat of high summer?" He tsked, resisting his impulse to sympathize with her. "I thought you wanted to walk, Princess."

Tears burned behind Megan's eyes. Oddly, she didn't know if it was because he'd called her that wretched pet name he had for her or because by gaining her goal of walking she would lose the last contact she had with Royce Devlin. The Saints save her, when had the heat of Royce Devlin's arms become more important to her than walking?

"I'm not ready," she protested, mystified by her sudden reluctance to stand on her own two feet.

He stepped backwards. She tipped forward. Without thinking, she slid one foot out in front of herself.

"That's my girl."

"One step's enough for the first time," she pleaded, vying for time. She had to think. She had to make sense out of the loss telescoping up from her right foot.

"Since when is one enough for you?" he parried and took a second step backward.

Megan lurched forward, coming down hard on her left foot.

He smiled. "Now, all the way to the table."

But I want your arms around me. I want you lifting me against your broad chest. I want you wanting me.

Each time she stepped toward him, he retreated. The tears welled in the corners of her eyes, disappointment and gratitude sluicing into one another like mountain streams coming together to form a river.

"One more and you're there."

Where? At the side of a table when it's into your arms I want to walk?

Megan lunged forward, the toe of her shoe catching the hem of her gown. She tripped and fell against his chest. Tears spilled from her eyes. His arms closed across her back, pressing her close. She blotted her face against the front of his shirt where he wouldn't feel the dampness, where he would never know she left a piece of herself.

He felt the surrender in her slumping body. His fingers itched to knead the tension from her shoulders. But he couldn't, wouldn't. It was best that she realize her mistake sooner than later. Best that she conclude as he had, that nothing good could come of any intimacy between them.

"If you hope to walk without injuring yourself," he teased in an attempt to soften the sting for her, "you're going to have to shorten your skirts or start wearing panniers again."

"I thought you found my not wearing hoops practical," she croaked against his chest.

"It was, as long as you had to be carried about."

He moved his hands from her back to her upper arms and moved her away from himself. She looked up at him, the sheen of moisture glazing her eyes nearly accomplishing what bold flirtation, sea-blue gown, and womanly curves had not.

"The kiss beneath the falls was just a kiss," he said. "A misguided, misplaced kiss. Don't read more into it than there was, Princess."

Like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, mortification blanched through Megan. Pride wouldn't allow her to admit she'd done just what he was accusing her of doing. "I haven't given so much as a second thought to that incident."

"Haven't you?"

"Where you got so foolish an idea is beyond me."

He rubbed his thumb against the seam of her sleeve beneath her elbow. "From a dress the same shade blue as your eyes."

"It's my favorite color," she insisted.

He tucked a wayward lock behind her ear. "And you've removed many of the confining combs from your hair."

"A woman grows weary of the same style."

He looked her in the eye. "Your flirtatiousness."

She snorted. "I wasn't flirting. I stumbled, tripped on the hem of my gown because you insisted I walk."

"Megan -- "

"It's Miss McCall to you. You forget yourself, sir." She jerked herself free of his hold and leaned against the edge of the table. "Fetch my chair and drafts for me."

He hesitated, looking at her, his eyes like molten copper. She couldn't bear their probing, their pity. She stared at the center of his chest, at the damnable placket spotted with her tears. She stared through him. Finally, he stepped out from between her and the window.

The shipyard beyond loomed in the mid-day sun like a detail she'd too long neglected. When had the pleasuring touch of a man grown more important to her than the ship she built? When had his hands upon her become more important to her than walking? For what possible reason could she even for a moment have considered surrendering her independence to Royce Devlin?

Below, Jubal Toombs moved furtively between the wharf and stew pot. The first time Royce Devlin carried her into the river, he'd taunted her about her inability to swim. When he'd learned that she built her ship on speculation, he'd harangued her as though she were a dull witted child. Now he pitied her. Was he any less cruel than her mean spirited overseer?

Toombs skulked around the pot until his back was to the scaffolding enshrouded ship and the men building her. What misdeed did that scurrilous blight on mankind contemplate now?

Shame shafted through Megan. She'd risked the futures of every man working in the yard by putting personal desire ahead of their needs. She'd risked the wellbeing of Jaisy and her children by being blind to yet another man. For a man's touch, she'd jeopardized her own dignity, her own independence.

Hunched beside the firepit, Toombs slid his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a small bottle, the contents of which he emptied into the kettle of stew.

"Does Mr. Toombs often add seasoning to the stew?" she asked without taking her eyes from him.

The legs of a chair scraped to a halt behind her. "Is he adding some now?"

Foreboding prickled the hairs at the nape of Megan's neck as her attention wavered from Toombs to Royce. "Yes. Is the spice palatable to everyone?"

"I'd pass on the stew today if I were you."

She watched Royce from the corner of her eye. "Would you advise your fellow shipbuilders of the same?"

"I intend to."

Royce moved to her side and peered through the window. She studied his profile. "Toombs has done this before, then."

"At least once since I've come into your employ. Judging by Dunn's reaction when I told him, I'd say that wasn't the first."

She sliced her chin through the air between them. "You told Dunn but not me?"

He straightened back from the window and faced her. "I didn't know you then the way I do now."

She looked for double meaning in his eyes. She found a bounty of emotions blistering the rusty orbs, among them yet pity. Pride scalded, she snapped, "Be done with your pitying looks, Mr. Devlin."

"I'm not pitying you."

"Liar. I see that loathsome sentiment in your eyes."

"What you see is regret. I regret having hurt you."

"You can't hurt me. No man can. I'm beyond hurting."

"You're confusing regret and pity."

"Confusing the two? Pray tell, what is their difference?"

"One is my weakness. The other is yours."

Megan blanched. "I have no weaknesses, not since a carriage crash showed me the true nature of a gentleman's heart. Allow me to demonstrate. Move me down to the yard."

"I don't think -- "

"Do you fear I'll lose control by your mere touch? I won't. I'm not so desperate." She threw her arms in the air. "Take your best shot, Mr. Devlin. I'll prove to you that your contact affects me no more than that of a piece of furniture.

In spite of the slick hue of a gown meant to incite him, in spite of the robust glow days of exercising in the sun had burnished into her cheeks, in spite of intimacies shared, Royce's predominant thought when he scooped her up was of the first time he'd lifted her. She'd roundly warned him against pity that initial evening at Hillhouse. It had also been the first time he'd told himself he couldn't seduce her.

He carried her down the steps. She didn't loop her arm around his neck as she usually did. She didn't lean into his chest to aid in their balance as was her custom. She didn't so much as flick an eyelash in his direction.

When he set her onto her feet on the dock, she stood at his side, her back rigid. She asked for nothing from him, not a supporting arm, not a balancing hand. He gave them anyway, even though she refused to lean against the hand he flattened to the small of her back, or rest her weight on the arm he slid under her elbow.

Though she must have noticed Toombs hunched in the shade of the piling nearest the stew pot, just below where he and she stood side by side, she called out his name as though he were two yards away. The shipwrights upon the scaffolding stopped hammering nails and stuffing oakum. Dunn and the sawyers consulting in the sawpit looked up from their measuring tapes and figures. A number of vermin scuttled through the shadows cast by the plank dock and Megan's broad skirt. Only one emerged into the sunlight. Toombs nudged the hat back from his brow and grinned evilly up at her. "Fine day fer a lady to walk the planks."

Royce squelched the urge to leap off the dock and throttle Toombs for his lewd innuendo. The comment seemed to miss its mark completely with Megan as she asked in a tone almost amiable, "How do you find the stew this day, Mr. Toombs?"

"Mighty fine as usual, mum. Can I dish ya up a dollop?"

Megan smiled, the same cool smile Royce had seen her offer Mannie-the-smith the day she'd exposed the thief in him. "Make it a hearty trencher full."

Toombs ladled stew from the pot and offered the brimming trencher to her.

Her smile faded. "That's for you to eat, Mr. Toombs."

"I've already had me share, mum."

"But you've since added spice. Spice is what I saw you add, is it not, Mr. Toombs?"

Loathing shadowed Toombs' eyes.

"Please, Mr. Toombs," she prodded, "have taste of your improvement."

Toombs glanced about as though searching for something by which to distract the woman commanding him. Dunn took a step closer. Royce gave Toombs his best lethal look. Scowling, Toombs lifted a scant filled spoon to his lips and sipped.

"Aaaah," he sighed without swallowing, dropping the spoon and bulk of its contents back to trencher. "'Tis perfect. Nectar for the gods."

"Good," sang Megan's sweet voice, only a man who'd heard that particular tune used on a thief would have been forewarned. "Eat up."

Toombs' mock good nature fled. "I said I already had me fill."

"Before you made the meal perfect?" gasped Megan in feigned astonishment. "Why Mr. Toombs, you tempt me to suspect that you've tampered ill with my good food. I could not keep in my employ any with such disregard for my hard earned foodstuffs."

The weight of his dilemma shown in Toombs' narrowed eyes. Loss of wages for a job that required no effort or a purging of the bowels. Toombs made his choice.

He raised the spoon to his mouth. He chewed, venom brewing in the beady eyes riveted to Megan McCall. Tossing aside the emptied trencher, Toombs snarled, "Be you satisfied now?"

"Actually, there is another matter of which I intended to speak to you about today. Since we are presently face-to-face it might as well be settled now."

She beckoned the overseer closer and bent over him. For the first time since her challenge up in the office, she lent her weight to the support of Royce's arm. Voice discreetly lowered, she addressed Toombs. "Now that I have Mr. Devlin working in the yard, I've no further need of your services, Mr. Toombs. You're dismissed."

Deadly menace glowed in the hellish depths of Jubal Toombs' eyes. Megan straightened, dug a coin from the dimity pocket at her waist and tossed it to Toombs. "That should take care of any wages yet owed to you. Should I ever see you in my yard again, I will call the constable and charge you with trespassing."

Toombs rubbed his jacket where the oversized knife beneath bulged the fabric. Instinctively, Royce's fingers tightened on Megan's waist, ready to fling her from harm's way. But Toombs finally turned and skulked off.

"That, Mr. Devlin, is strength." She looked him in the eye. "You can stop squeezing my waist now. As you have just witnessed, I am no helpless maiden to be fooled by any pirate's black-hearted seduction."

Royce winced. Megan McCall may not be the helpless cripple he'd met his first night at Hillhouse. But she was yet every bit the vulnerable young woman in search of an affection that could never be.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"It's time you start walking with canes."

Royce Devlin's deep voice resonated through the Hillhouse's library, through Megan. Reflexively, her fingers tightened on the pen they held over the ledger on the writing table. She wished he didn't still have that kind of effect on her. She wished she didn't still need him. She wished she could extinguish the fire he'd lit in her with as much ease as she'd earlier sent Jubal Toombs away.

She looked up at the canes Royce held out to her. Though they were thick enough to support her, both easily fit into one of his hands. For an instant, the small of her back recalled the press of his broad palm as she'd stood on the dock repaying Toombs for his mean tricks earlier that afternoon.

Royce's hand released the canes onto the table in front of her. "I'll leave them for you to get used to." He smiled a cockeyed, half-suppressed smile. "Keep in mind, trying them out on your own would be reckless."

Her cheeks grew hot with the memory of him calling her reckless when he'd found her standing alone in the loft office, of her fruitless attempt to seduce him; and she shot, "I thought I'd explained to you the difference between reckless and daring."

He sobered. "You did. But I've found you to be a woman who needs reminding from time to time of the prudent choices."

She glared at him. "You aren't going to harangue me again about making an enemy out of Mr. Toombs, are you?"

"Not if your singular response will be to remind me that he has yet to leave anyone's employ on good terms."

"It remains my defense, as if I even need defend my actions to you."

He shrugged his broad shoulders. "I merely caution you to keep an eye out for retaliation from that cur."

Why? Because you haven't yet seduced what you want from me?

But she'd been the one who'd attempted a seduction. And he the one who'd refused. Perhaps the pirate had a conscience after all. Perhaps he'd found himself unable to use a cripple.

Megan winced and turned her attention to the canes within easy reach. Setting aside her pen, she stroked the polished hickory of the nearest one. But her fingers found the heat Royce Devlin's grip had infused into the hard wood.

Moving her hand to a cooler place along the hickory, she snatched them both up. "Shall we try them out?"

"I'm at your service, Princess."

Only because the sooner I learn to use the canes, the sooner I'll be independent and you'll be free of my burden.

Megan's palms dampened against the thick ends of the canes.

"How do they fit?" he asked, moving to the desk corner.

"Fine." Like they were calibrated to fit my hands.

"I had to guess at the size of your hand."

I wouldn't have had to guess at the size of yours.

"Are there any rough spots? It's hard for me to tell. My hands aren't as tender as yours."

Memory of their callused caress across her bare shoulders, of the thickened pads of his thumbs strumming her puckering nipples sparked a desire in Megan that tugged through her. Her fingers tightened around the bulbed heads of the canes, though she kept her voice cool. "They fit well enough."

"Should you find they need adjusting -- "

"I'll be sure to inform you."

The model of The Imperia on the fireplace mantel was visible over his left shoulder. She didn't have to wonder if he'd cut a commanding presence captaining a schooner. She'd seen him coatless aboard that wretched merchantman, his bearing more than his size dwarfing every other able bodied man aboard. She doubted many men challenged him. She shouldn't.

"Need I struggle to my feet on my own so I can try out my new canes, Mr. Devlin, or will you help me?"

"You managed to get onto your feet unaided well enough today in the shipyard office."

"It's been a long day. A tedious day."

A shadow crossed his rusty eyes. Still, he moved to the side of her chair and cupped her elbow in his palm. She rose to her feet with none of the struggle she'd encountered on her own in the loft office. It was as though his very touch infused her with the strength to do anything, as though his energy flowed into her. Why couldn't she have known him before she'd lost her faith in gentlemen and learned to loathe pirates?

He stepped behind her and gathered several inches of skirt up around her waist. "What game do you play with me now, sir?"

"No game. Just making sure you don't fall flat on that upturned little nose of yours."

So, he'd noticed the Irish bent to her nose.

"Have your skirts shortened before you try the canes on your own or practice without your gown."

"Without my gown? We're not in any river now, Mr. Devlin." Nor beneath a waterfall, half naked in each other's arms.

"That we're not," he murmured, his breath hot against the nape of her neck.

Megan gritted her teeth, leaned into the hard heads of the canes, and slid her right foot forward.

"Don't rush it," he said, his voice a soothing murmur in her ear.

She lurched her left foot ahead.

"What's your hurry?"

"I want to walk." She brought her right foot out in front of the left. "Have you ever doubted that, Mr. Devlin?"

"Not for one minute, Princess."

"Yet you think I would jeopardize the one thing I want more than any other for the kiss of an errant pirate."

"Is walking what you want more than anything else?"

She stumbled, but not because of any dragging hem. His hands tightened on her waist. Megan hated that she wished they weren't cushioned from her by layers of bunched up skirting. She hated that her body wouldn't stop reacting to even the most tenuous contact with him.

She hated that he'd guessed she wanted more than working limbs out of life.

"I confess. Walking is merely a means to an end. Independence is my ultimate goal." It was a half-truth.

"Freedom is mine," he said.

Disappointment shimmied up Megan's spine. She didn't want him so eager to remind her what he wanted and coolly countered, "You'll have it in about thirteen years, if my calculations of how many months you've shortened your term by with your extra services are correct."

His thumbs tightened against her spine. "Counting the days we have left together, Princess?"

"Perhaps you'll show Jaisy what to do so she can take your place." She slanted an incontrovertible look over her shoulder at him. "You see, I desire to be as free of you as you wish to be free of me."

Royce frowned. He feared she spoke truer words than she realized as part of him still wanted to plumb the uncharted depths of Megan McCall's passion.

They stopped beside the settee and he asked, "Do you want to sit and rest?"

"I've no time to sit about," she snapped.

"As you desire."

What Megan desired was Royce Devlin's broad chest pressed against her spine. What she desired was his mouth upon hers. What she desired was an end to the humiliation of wanting a man who didn't want her.

Hoof beats echoed off the road beyond the library windows. She welcomed the distraction...until the door from the entry hall swung open and a red-faced Peyton strode into the room, gave her a head to toe glance, and growled, "So it's true."

Megan's first thought was for Royce Devlin's hands upon her hips and the way she arched her back toward his chest. But then, Peyton continued. "I had to learn from common gossip at the Red Lion that you were back on your feet."

Megan let out an audible breath. "Sorry, Peyton. I'd planned to surprise you once I was walking on my own again."

"Surprise me you did." The planter pursed his lips, his gloved fingers clamping over the back of the wingback chair facing the far end of the settee. "Sometimes, m'dear, I believe you intentionally keep me in the dark."

Royce felt Megan stiffen within the circle of his hands. He didn't like Lyttle's condescending tone. He didn't like at all the way the planter sounded more accusing than pleased about Megan regaining the use of her legs. And he liked least of all the contrite tone of Megan's, "I don't mean to keep you in the dark, Peyton."

"Soo -- " Royce drew out the word as he impaled the planter with a glare. " -- who was so eager to spread the word of our Megan's physical progress?"

Lyttle's pale eyes focused on Royce as though seeing him standing at Megan's back for the first time, as though he'd never before noticed Royce's hands on her hips. Had Megan been a woman Royce had courted, he'd damn well have noticed every hand that came within caressing distance.

Lyttle dropped his gaze back to Megan. "Of what concern is my source to him?"

"None," she leveled. "But it is of interest to me, Peyton. I only took my first steps this afternoon and those in the privacy of my warehouse office. Who told you?"

Lifting his hands from the back of the chair, Lyttle tugged off his riding gloves one finger at a time. "Your overseer presented the Red Lion clientele quite a show with his imitation of you standing on the dock in front of your warehouse as you dismissed him."

Royce's fingers cinched over her hips. She got the message. I told you so.

"Inciting a riot against me, was he?" she quizzed, hoping that stating the absurd would quell Royce Devlin concerns.

Riding gloves in one hand, Peyton slapped them against his thigh. "Having some fun at your expense is more like it."

Still, tension crackled through the layers of her skirts from Royce Devlin's fingertips. She'd had enough of his warnings against Toombs. She'd had enough of his fingers pinching her skin against the points of her pelvis. "I wish to sit."

He helped her onto the settee. The friction of his arm skidding out from between her and the back of the couch ruffled the cloth of her bodice. His silent stare as he stood towering over her ruffled her hackles. She peered around Royce at Peyton. "Would you like a refreshment?"

"Posthaste, m'dear."

"Please pour for us, Mr. Devlin."

She didn't look up, though he hesitated before he stepped out from between her and the tea table. Behind her, he gathered the necessary accoutrements from the low boy against the wall. In front of her, the steady slap of Peyton's riding gloves against his thigh was like a drum beat underscoring a discordant rhythm.

She glanced up at Peyton. His mouth was drawn, and he eyed Royce narrowly. It was unlike Peyton to give so much notice to a servant, unless the servant nettled him in some way.

"Have a seat," she said, wanting him to stop slapping his gloves, to stop scrutinizing Royce.

Peyton moved to the front of the chair, his gaze still fixed in the direction of her bondsman. "Devlin," he said, the name inordinately loud above the whoosh of broadcloth breeches settling against upholstery. "I prefer the brandy."

A second decanter thunked onto the tray on the low boy along the wall behind Megan, and Royce reappeared at the end of the tea table. She glanced up at him. His gaze was riveted to Peyton and his mouth a tight, flat line. "No Irish whiskey for you, eh Lyttle?"

Peyton said nothing, his gloves at last stilling against his thigh, his eyes going cold as ice. More than once, when Peyton's anger took on this kind of unearthly quiet, Megan had intervened on behalf of a hapless servant whose only crime had been a moment of clumsiness. Though Royce Devlin was no hapless servant, she sensed she best head off whatever his social slight had incited.

"Peyton, wouldn't you like to hear how I've come to regain the use of my legs?"

Royce dropped the silver tray with the glasses and decanters hard onto the tea table in front of Megan. She jumped and found herself staring into a pair a rust-brown eyes as censuring as Peyton's ice-blue set.

"Enlighten me," Peyton responded, his tone hard edged.

Royce's broad hand closed around the neck of a decanter. Was he wishing it was her neck within his grasp? Did he want to choke her silent? His eyes suggested he did.

She glared back at him, incensed that he thought her daft enough to reveal that she'd gone half-naked into a river with him almost daily. Or was it the exposure of his first patient, a brother of whom he'd been reluctant to speak, that he warned her against? Without lifting her gaze from his, she stated, "I've been doing exercises to strengthen my limbs."

The tightness of his mouth eased some, and he turned his attention to filling the two glasses on the tray with brandy and Irish whiskey. Megan turned her attention back to her guest.

Peyton lifted the brandy snifter Royce had filled to his lips and sipped. Lowering the glass, he let out a long breath and looked at Megan through eyes still cold but more controlled. "Since we're clearing the air this evening, m'dear, I'd like you to explain why you've been asking around for a wood cutter?"

***

The door had barely closed behind Lyttle when Royce Devlin lifted his shoulder from the fireplace mantel where he'd leaned throughout the rest of Megan's and Lyttle's conversation. "So, you're hiring a wood cutter and starting up the mill."

She slumped back against the settee. "Gloat away, Mr. Devlin. I've argued myself out persuading Peyton of the merits of cutting from my woods and starting up my saw mill."

He lowered himself onto the edge of the chair Peyton had vacated. "You used my arguments well."

She gave him a sharp if weary glance. "Sarcasm?"

He shook his head. "You did well, Princess, not that you owed Lyttle any explanation."

"Is that a vote of confidence in me, Mr. Devlin?"

He wanted to gather her into his arms and kiss the weariness from her mouth. Instead, he tamped back an impulse that would bring him only trouble and scowled. "Lyttle only drags you down with his nay saying."

"He thinks I need protecting."

"He doesn't know you well, does he?"

That brought a chuckle from her. "Suffice it to say, he doesn't understand me. He never has."

"And he never will."

Her lingering smile faded and her eyes softened. He'd said too much. He shifted back in the chair. "You'll need a buyer for the timber you cut."

Megan sighed and nodded. "Can you find me one of those buyers you said will pay in advance for cut lumber, a buyer from the Caribbean?"

The centers of the rust hued eyes flashed at the mention of the Caribbean. What about the naming of that tropical sea set the prisms of Royce Devlin's eyes flexing with memory? Were those the waters where he'd learned to swim? Was that where he'd been taught how to exercise the strength back into his brother's damaged legs, a brother about whom he'd been reluctant to talk?

"How'd your brother get hurt?" she asked.

Regret gathered across Royce's brow like a badly sewn seam. "He was thrown from a horse."

"Accidents happen."

He gripped the arms of the chair with his broad hands. "The animal was far too spirited for him."

"He shouldn't have ridden it then."

He slumped forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. "He was goaded into riding."

"By a brother?"

The pain of remembering shuddered across Royce Devlin's features. "By an older brother who should have known better."

She wished he hadn't answered. She wished she could have taken back her question. She wished she could take away his pain. "Boys make dares."

"It was a stupid dare," he argued, meeting her gaze.

Megan leaned forward and placed her hand lightly on the back of his wrist. "You've been a long time paying for that mistake, haven't you?"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Megan watched Royce from the loft office window. She hadn't meant for him to bare his soul to her about his brother. But he had. And that he had, touched her in a place she didn't want to be touched by a man convicted of a pirate's crime.

He swung the hammer he held, joining a plank to the bow of her ship. The seam gathering the back of his shirt across his shoulders stretched. The morning breeze blowing through the yard and across the scaffolding lifted the unbleached fabric away from his ribs then settled it back as gently as a lover's caress. She wished it was her hands skimming his flanks, her fingertips tucking beneath the waist of his breeches instead of the tails of the shirt.

She pressed her brow to the window frame, bemoaning the futility of a desire that could not be satisfied. And not because he was a pirate and she thought pirates responsible for her father's death. Because the pirate refused her.

The fingers of one hand tightened on the head of her cane. The others pinched the sill beneath the window. Why didn't he act the rogue that his profession dictate he be?

Because maybe he was an honorable man as he claimed.

Could he be? Might he have refused her not out of revulsion but out of a sense of integrity? He had been protective of her three nights ago when Peyton last visited. And he hadn't been unkind when rejecting her attempted seduction. Maybe there was something beyond the strength of his limbs that she could trust in Royce Devlin.

He turned on the scaffolding and called for more planks. His voice slipped through her open window and under her defenses easily as an incoming tide. Her heartbeat quickened. How could she not trust a man who so easily melted away her armor?

Then she noticed he'd gone still on the scaffold at the bow of her ship, that he watched something or someone moving out onto the pier adjoining her warehouse.

Megan inched the window further open and leaned into the opening. Below, a man in a fawn colored smock coat that fit perfectly to shoulders almost as broad as Royce Devlin's strode the dock. He was scanning the yard, and, when his face lifted toward the bow of her ship, his step faltered ever so slightly. She glanced up and caught Royce looking back at her. Then he turned away, and the warehouse door below rattled open.

Royce fumbled a treenail from the pouch tied at his waist. There was only one reason for Jackson Carter coming to Megan McCall's shipyard. Royce positioned the narrow end of the spike against the juniper plank he held against the framing. Hopefully Jackson had caught the full meaning of his waving him off. He didn't need his old friend expounding to Megan on his past.

He struck the blunt head of the metal wedge with his hammer, driving it through the plank with a single blow. He shouldn't have told her upon whom he'd learned how to exercise strength back into damaged limbs. He should have left her believing he'd been hurt by a woman. But, at the time, he'd thought that truth more dangerous than revealing he'd learned the method on a brother. He hadn't anticipated Megan McCall turning seductress. He hadn't foreseen the gentle care with which she'd drawn the full truth of his part in his brother's accident from him.

He hadn't expected her to understand.

But she had. And he knew why. The Mistress of Hillhouse lived with her own guilt.

So they'd handled each other with kid gloves through the days since. Would she still be kind to him if she learned how he'd abandoned the woman for whom Jackson Carter served as emissary?

An eternity seemed to have passed since Jackson had disappeared into the building, since Dunn had shortly followed. Shadows had grown short beneath the high arc of the sun. His pouch empty of nails, Royce climbed down from the scaffolding. He stared at the lone window set high in the weathered gray boards of the building beside the dock. He should just refill his nail pouch and get back to work, let the chips fall where they may. What difference would her knowing the full truth make?

But, before he could answer that question for himself, the warehouse door swung open and Dunn stepped out onto the pier. Megan, arm in arm with Jackson Carter, followed. They stopped at the edge of the dock overlooking the yard, and Megan tapped her cane.

"Gentleman," she announced, "our ship is sold."

A resounding cheer erupted through the yard. Only Royce remained silent. Only Royce seemed to notice the reservation in the set line of Megan's mouth. Only Royce raised a questioning eyebrow at Jackson. Jackson shrugged. That's when Royce noticed Megan McCall's eyes narrowing at him, when he realized she yet suspected the motives of any man she called pirate. That's why he must keep secret his part in soliciting a buyer for her ship.

Royce Devlin was keeping something from her. Megan saw the fact of it in the way his rusty gaze strayed away from her. She saw it in the way he avoided looking at Jackson Carter. They'd met before. She'd bet on it. The question was, would either man confess to knowing the other?

"Mr. Devlin," she called. "Come here, please."

She watched him climb onto the dock, watched him stride toward her and Dunn and Jackson Carter. She introduced him to the man who'd just negotiated the terms of sale on her ship and waited for the reaction of recognition. But Royce's face remained impassive as he extended his hand to Jackson.

"It seems the two of you have something in common," she said, testing, pressing.

Royce's hand collided with Carter's. A cat-in-the-cream grin stretched across Carter's mouth, revealing that the emissary didn't have as much stake in keeping any acquaintance with Royce Devlin secret.

"Mr. Carter is also from the Caribbean," she added, watching both men closely.

Carter pumped Royce's hand. "Devlin, Devlin," he said, as though testing the name, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "The name's familiar. Where in the Caribbean are your people from?"

"The Devlins of my ancestry are Irish," he answered, his look now lethal enough to have laid Carter out were it a fist.

One corner of Carter's grin twitched. "Those of the Caribbean Devlins of my acquaintance are also."

"But likely another line," Royce growled, the line of his jaw hard and sharp.

Megan shifted closer to Jackson Carter's elbow, drawing a glance from Royce. Given the frustration blanching across his rusty eyes, she almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

"The two of you can discuss family ties this evening over dinner," she said, watching Royce Devlin struggle to keep at bay the emotions his eyes couldn't hide. "I've invited Mr. Carter to stay the night at Hillhouse."

***

"You're fortunate to have sold your indentureship into these colonies," Jackson Carter said, the glow of the multi-candled chandelier above the mahogany dining table glinting off his rakish grin and shuddering along the rim of the wine glass he held inches from his lips.

"Am I?" Royce returned, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice, trying not to snap the stem of the wineglass between his fingers in half.

"Indeed," answered Carter. "The people of Virginia have a peculiar sense of acceptance between the classes."

"More so than where I came from," Royce snapped back.

"And where did you say that was?"

"I didn't say."

One corner of Jackson's urbane smile jerked. "My mistake. I thought you'd said."

"I didn't," Royce said through clenched teeth.

Jackson sipped at his wine, his eyes twinkling at Royce over the fluted rim of the glass. Royce glowered. His old friend was playing the feigned stranger status a little too cute for a woman of Megan McCall's intelligence not to notice. If only he'd been able to get Jackson alone to explain the situation. If only Jackson's approach to life wasn't so blasted cheeky. Jackson likely thought the prize at stake no more serious than one of persuading a plantation bred widow into spreading her thighs. Frustrated, Royce popped a crab filled pastry into his mouth.

Megan's voice lifted from the head of the table, where she sat virtually between him and Jackson. "The island where you come from, Mr. Carter, are the people there not accepting?"

Jackson set down his glass and chuckled. "We've been at the mercy of far too many governments in our short history to narrow our tolerance to any one culture. At least for the most part," he added, his glance in Royce's direction no longer than the blink of an eyelash.

The smile that had been pasted across Megan's lips since their gathering in the library for before dinner port tightened. "Hence a man with an English name working for a woman clearly of French heritage so soon after a war between those two countries."

"My employer is a prudent woman," Jackson supplied. "She never lets politics interfere with business."

Just personal wants. The thought scudded through Royce's thoughts without warning while the mistress of Hillhouse motioned for the next course as had another mistress under whose roof he'd resided. But Megan McCall's question snapped him fully back to the present at Hillhouse.

"Tell, me. How did Mme. du Lac learn of my vessel?"

Royce jabbed his foot at the long legs sprawled toward him under the table. Jackson jumped and yelped. Megan's eyes widened.

"Leg cramp," Jackson offered in Megan's direction.

"Perhaps you should walk it off," Royce said, his tone heavy with innuendo.

Jackson's eyes darkened at Royce. "It passed."

"How fortunate," Megan murmured. "Now, you were about to say how your employer learned of my ship's availability."

Jackson's legs pulled back out of Royce's reach. "It's not as though you build your ship in some secluded cove. Word gets around."

Royce let out a pent-up breath. Megan's trim, little chin tilted in his direction. He raised his soup filled spoon, as though to say he'd been blowing to cool its contents, and sipped.

"Gossip isn't always accurate," she said, her gaze sliding across the table from him to Jackson.

Royce clicked his spoon against the rim of his bowl. Jackson gave him a smug grin. "But it does pique the curiosity of interested parties."

"Who, I'm sure," returned Royce, trying to wrap up the topic at hand before either of them revealed more than he meant to, "thoroughly checked out the merits of the vessel before approaching with an offer to buy."

"Did you thoroughly check me out, Mr. Carter?" she asked.

Jackson choked on his soup, surprise flashing across his features. Maybe now the smug bastard would wise up to the fact that he was toying with a woman as shrewd as the one who'd sent him to buy a ship on which no one else dared take a chance.

Jackson wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin, his eyes sharpening on the Mistress of Hillhouse. His smile wasn't as cocky either. "Your ship's merits were thoroughly explored."

Royce's confidence mounted, now that his old friend knew what they were up against. But, Megan made a small sound in the back of her throat that hinted of disbelief.

Jackson's mouth slanted above the deep cleft in his chin, the smile one of the best in the man's arsenal, Royce knew.

"Had I known the woman I'd be negotiating with was beautiful and without attachment," Jackson said, "I assure you, I'd have queried about more than the ship she was building."

Jackson leaned across the corner of the table toward Megan. Royce fought back the urge to snatch Jackson away from her, to slap the silly smirk off his friend's face and stuff whatever glib remark he was sure to make back down his throat.

"And please," purred the emissary, "call me Jackson."

Royce skewered a piece of ham from the platter Jep offered him. Damn Jackson his flirting. Royce glanced at Megan. A bit of color rose from the low neckline of her blue, satin gown, climbed the slim column of her throat, and stained her cheeks. Her forced smile now seemed genuinely tentative. In spite of her well-founded suspicions, she liked Jackson's attention.

He'd been wasting his time trying to curb Jackson's glib tongue, trying to persuade Megan that she hadn't seen what any fool couldn't miss, that her guest and her bondsman were at least acquainted. He should have been taking advantage of the obvious. He should have been acting the part of a jealous suitor. The role was one, Royce realized, he wouldn't find hard to play, not with the smoothest lady's man he'd ever known giving Megan McCall his lustiest look.

"Carter." Royce said the name in a voice that was louder than was necessary for the proximity of the three dinner partners. But it had the desired affect of diverting Jackson's attention from Megan. "Have you ever partaken of Virginia ham?"

"Every chance I get," Jackson returned, his voice heavy with innuendo. "There's none finer in all of the American colonies."

Royce struggled with his self-control. "Here at Hillhouse, we eat our ham with honey mustard sauce."

"Honey mustard?" Jackson's grin twitched at one corner. "Sounds sweet and tart at the same time."

"I have a particular fondness for it myself," Royce returned, a hint of menace in his voice.

Royce Devlin was jealous.

The fact blanched through Megan, standing every nerve in her body on end. She'd been right to suspect the haste with which Royce had changed from laborer's garb into gentleman's upon returning from the yard. She'd been right to think his rushing had something to do with Jackson Carter's presence. She'd been right about the two men knowing each other. What her suspicious nature had prevented her from seeing was that Royce's and Carter's acquaintance might be no more dangerous than a pair of rogues with a history of competing over the fairer sex.

Part of the revelation ruffled the hair at the nape of Megan's neck. Mostly, it set her stomach afloat as though she rode the deck of a schooner dropping through a high sea. Royce Devlin was jealous, over her, in spite of his refusing her invitation. In spite of the fact that he'd held himself at bay since the day he'd stood half-naked in a sun kissed river that churned with the ungoverned power of a waterfall and kissed her. An admirable sense of self-control, his.

Megan gazed at Royce's razor nicked chin, her new understanding of why he'd hurried sweeping away her misgivings. Now, she could enjoy how the candlelight slid like liquid copper into the damp rivulets of a russet mane slicked back with water. Now, she dared recall the way the long, thick fingers spreading out from beneath the ruffled cuff of a fine, linen shirt had stroked her bare shoulder and cupped her head as he'd pressed his lips to hers. She could contemplate tugging the knot from the creamy cravat tied beneath his bronze, razor scored chin and sliding her hands beneath the russet, velvet jacket that fit his wide shoulders like a supple glove. For a former inmate of Newgate Prison, he moved within the confines of the tailor-made clothes with a remarkable ease.

He also handled her silver eating utensils with experienced dexterity. Where'd a pirate learn the proper use of those implements?

Under the tutelage of a woman, same as her father. What man didn't have a mother to teach him?

Or a wife.

Or lover.

The hand of jealousy squeezed at Megan's heart. She didn't want there to be a woman of significance in Royce Devlin's past.

Her guest wielded his knife in his right hand and fork in his left, his table manners as impeccable as her bondsman's. Somewhere, his and Royce's paths had crossed. She had no doubt of that, given the way they parried and thrust words at each, given the frequency with which their sparring feet rustled the hem of her skirt against her ankles. Given how Carter's step had faltered when he'd spied Royce on the scaffolding in her yard and that Royce had paused in his work.

Where? When? Under what circumstances?

Circumstances that involved a woman, Megan's womanly instincts warned. The woman who'd tutored civility into Royce Devlin's broad, callused hands?

A shaft of longing lanced through Megan. Had a woman Royce Devlin loved instructed him to drape a napkin over his knee? Had a wife dressed him in the clothes of a gentleman?

Gentleman.

Pirate.

The salty flavor of the ham burned Megan's lips, lips that had sampled a pirate's passion.

Or had his mouth simply ravaged hers?

Megan swallowed past the lump in her throat. Royce Devlin was studying her, a vertical crease above the bridge of his nose pulling his brow together, etching regret into his strong features. But what did he regret? Kissing her? Not accepting her invitation to kiss her a second time? Or, that he was not free to accept any invitation?

The possibility of that last tore through Megan with the same devastating effect as a fractured bone piercing tissue. Setting the bones in her broken legs had been painful. But she'd never have healed nor been able to walk again had she not endured that agony.

Forcing a smile, she began quizzing Jackson Carter for clues. "How long have you been Mme. du Lac's emissary?"

Carter's eyes sparkled with the deceptive clarity of a Caribbean bay whose depth tested the volume of a man's lungs while its floor appeared only inches away. "A very long time. The lady has a penchant for taking in young men and shaping their futures."

Megan sucked in a breath. "Your Mme. du Lac, she's an older woman then?"

Laughter erupted from her guest. "Desiré's no dowager."

"Desiré?" Apprehension skittered up Megan's spine like cold fingers. "What a descriptive name."

"More than you know," puckered Carter.

"How's that?" Megan asked, her throat constricting.

Carter snorted. "What Desiré wants, Desiré gets."

Royce's fingertips drummed the mahogany tabletop in an unrelenting rhythm that reminded Megan of a tattered sail snapping in the wind. She took in the rigid line of his jaw, the flatness of his mouth, the dark warning in his molten eyes as he glared across the table at Jackson Carter.

She likes to take in young men and mold them.

Megan clutched her hands together in her lap where no one could see them. Had her bondsman learned his manners from a French lady on a Caribbean island, from Jackson Carter's Desiré?

"Always?" she asked in Carter's direction, so breathless she wasn't sure any ears but her own had heard.

Royce's fingers stilled against the polished wood. Carter's cocky grin slipped.

"Not always," the emissary conceded.

"Most of us don't," Royce muttered in a voice raw with challenge.

Before he even swung his razor scored chin toward her, she knew he challenged more from her than a kiss, a heated embrace, or a warm berth between her legs. Though he must be wanting. He'd lain with no other woman since coming to Hillhouse. Megan knew. She still didn't sleep so soundly that she wouldn't have heard him pass on the stairs. And no one slipped by Jaisy.

But, Royce Devlin wanted his freedom and all the choices that come with that privilege. It's what she'd want if she were him. The question was, were he free, would he run into her arms or away from them?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Royce charged up the flight of stairs from Megan's room. She'd insisted he assist her to her chambers while Jep showed Jackson to a guestroom on the third floor. Then she'd delayed him with inane chatter that bordered on flirtation. All because he'd let Jackson Carter goad far too much reaction out of him.

Never mind that he'd used his and Jackson's affable rivalry to divert her suspicions, that her flirting was preferable to her suspecting. When he got his hands on Jackson, he was going to break him in half...just as soon as he got the information out of him that he needed.

A pace past his own bedchamber, its door ajar, a familiar voice called out to him. "In here."

Royce skidded, back stepped, and pushed the door fully open. Jackson Carter lay on his back in the middle of Royce's bed, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded behind his head. He stared at the ceiling with its flaking paint.

"I've seen you in better stead," Jackson said.

Reigning in his ire, Royce stepped into the room. "It's as good a bed as you'll have tonight."

His old friend grinned. "But I wasn't born to better."

Royce shut the door quietly behind him. "I've known worse."

"Such as Newgate?"

Royce folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the door frame. "What do you know about my confinement behind those moldy walls?"

"I'm Desiré's emissary in more than just business matters."

"Her spy."

Jackson glanced his way. "I inform her of matters pertinent to her."

Royce's shoulder muscles bunched. "My personal state is no longer her concern."

"Your well-being has never ceased to be of interest to her."

Royce pushed off from the door, strode past the foot of the bed, and braced his hands against the narrow walls of the dormer. He stared out the window. "I was of so much interest to her that she left me rotting in prison."

"By the time she learned where you were, you'd already been sold into indentureship."

Royce spun away from the dormer and stalked to the lowboy chest in which he stored what meager possessions he had, snarling, "Where she left me."

"She has her pride, Royce."

He poured water from the ever-ready pitcher atop the chest into the wash bowl. "How well I know."

"How well indeed. The two of you are cut from the same cloth where pride is concerned."

Royce slammed down the pitcher. "The devil take you."

"You could have written to her. She'd have come running to your invitation."

Royce plunged his hands into the tepid water as though he could simply scrub away his aggravations. "And dragged me home."

"She's strong willed. I'll give you that. But she's had to be in order to survive in a world run by men."

"Heaven forbid that she should have to bow to any man."

"As opposed to your Miss McCall? Or does she, like Desiré, refuse to bend to your will."

"In the first place, she's not mine." Royce rubbed wet fingers over his brow and kneaded the back of his neck. "In the second -- " He strode to the side of the bed, pressed his fists into the mattress beside Jackson, and leaned over his old friend. " -- I'm indentured to the lady. There is no question as to who is to bow to whom."

A familiar light glinted in Jackson's eyes. "A diminutive beauty, Miss McCall. Though not lacking in womanly assets. When she looped her arm through mine after dinner and insisted I escort her into the library for brandy, one lovely breast pressed against my arm -- "

Royce had Jackson by the shirtfront and reefed from the bed before another syllable escaped his lips. "That's something else we need to talk about."

Jackson's unflagging smile widened. "I'll keep my hands off the widow who is both sweet and tart."

Royce jerked his hands away from Jackson. Jackson sobered. "I don't suppose there's any way I could convince you to let Desiré buy you out of this ridiculous situation."

"And become indebted to her again?"

"There are worse fates in life. After experiencing the inside of Newgate, I'd have thought you'd learned that."

"Newgate wasn't the worst. Just the foulest." Royce looked Jackson up and down. "If I returned to her, what would she make of me? Would she dress me up in pretty clothes and ship me off to do her dirty work?"

"I buy my own clothes."

"Paid for by wages from her. Maybe I'd be her new emissary."

Jackson's mouth flattened. "You'd have to earn my job, Royce. I'd not willingly give it up."

Royce smiled a mean smile. "Be careful, my friend. Any door that woman opens, she can also close."

"She made only one mistake with you, my friend."

Royce clenched his fists at his side to keep from slamming them into the wall. "She should never have taken away from me the one thing I wanted most!"

"Ah, make that two mistakes."

Surprise blanched through Royce, and he gaped at Jackson. Jackson shrugged. "She should have boxed some of that damnable Devlin pride out of you."

Royce narrowed his eyes at the emissary. "Enough history. What are the terms of the contract you've made with Megan on Desiré's behalf?"

Jackson's sandy eyebrows shot up. "I don't recall Miss McCall introducing you to me as her representative."

"You wouldn't be here had I not written Desiré, Jackson."

"That doesn't entitle you to hear the details of her contract from me."

"God's Blood, I will know if I've led Megan to the slaughter like a lamb."

"I can tell you that your lady holds her own in a negotiation."

"Then she got fair terms."

Jackson sighed. "She got the best terms she could get in her circumstances."

Apprehension shimmied up Royce's spine. "Her circumstances?"

"You didn't expect Desiré to buy anything from your lady without my fully checking her and her ship out."

"Then you learned of her ship's merit."

Jackson's pale eyes considered Royce for a long time before he finally responded. "What I will tell you is, I advised Desiré against buying Miss McCall's ship."

Royce stiffened. "It's a worthy vessel."

"It's an untried ship designed and built by an unproven plantation heiress of questionable stability."

"If you reported unfavorably on Megan and her vessel," Royce shot back at the man who was becoming more like an adversary with every breath, "why did Desiré still make an offer?"

"Because of you."

"Me?" Royce snorted in disbelief.

"This ship," explained Jackson, "or should I say, this woman is the one thing that has made you contact Desiré."

***

If Desiré du Lac could buy her ship, Megan reasoned, she could buy Royce Devlin out of indentureship. But the woman hadn't. Did that mean the French woman had rejected the pirate?

The phaeton bounced over a bump in the Norfolk street, tossing Megan across the seat. Fortunately, Royce's firm arm blocked her skid over the leather cushions. She'd have liked to wrap her arms around that thick limb and hug herself close. Instead, she said in an imperious tone, "Going a bit fast for the condition of the street, aren't you, Mr. Devlin?"

The rusty eyes glanced her way, dark with warning. Too late for that. Royce Devlin had revealed too much of his feelings through his and Jackson Carter's sparring to pretend otherwise now. She smiled sweetly. "We wouldn't want to wind Mr. Carter's horse before they even left the city, either."

Royce hauled back on the reins, stopping the carriage, and looked past her to the man riding in tandem with them. "This is where we part company, Carter."

Mme. du Lac's emissary heeled his leggy bay close to the side of the phaeton, leaned from the animal's back, and took up Megan's hand. "My ill fortune that business will not bring me back this way for some weeks."

Jackson Carter pressed his lips to the back of Megan's gloved fingers. The phaeton seat creaked beneath Royce's shifting weight. He was jealous all right, and over her. Megan's smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

Carter released her hand and straightened. "Until I return to Norfolk."

"I look forward to your next visit."

Royce's fingers hammered the seat back behind Megan's shoulder.

"At which time," she purred, "our schooner will be ready for launch."

"No need to rush, Miss McCall. My next visit will be well in advance of the scheduled completion date."

"She'll be ready, none the less, for your inspection."

A strangled sound escaped Royce's throat. Megan's smile stretched. Carter's gaze strayed past her, the corners of his lips twitching as he said, "I do so look forward to attending our little lady."

Was that a growl coming from Royce? The light carriage jumped beneath the impact of Royce's heels coming down on the dash. Megan gave her sprawling bondsman a toe to head look. He shrugged. "Just thought I'd get comfortable, while you two continue with your good-byes."

"And a good day to you, also, Mr. Devlin," Carter called through a broad grin.

"Yeah. Same to you, Carter."

The emissary tipped his hat one last time to Megan. "Until next we meet."

"Until then," Megan conceded, momentarily content to know that she hadn't imagined his possessiveness of the evening before. Still...

"Charming gentleman," she commented as Carter rode off.

"I thought you didn't trust gentlemen," Royce grumbled.

"Jealous, Mr. Devlin?" she asked, facing him.

The rusty eyes glinted in the shadow of the phaeton hood. His thumb moved against the reins, weaving the leather straps through his fingers.

She'd expected a more overt reaction. She'd expected denial. Denial she'd been prepared to argue. If he'd denied the fact, she could have thrown back in his face his accusing her of being jealous of her cousin.

Though she'd never been jealous of Cornelia Mae, not until Royce Devlin had compared the two of them, not until he'd glanced at her immobilized legs. She'd never wanted to tear her cousin's hair out by the handful until Corny laid her hand upon the back of Royce's. She'd never envied Corny anything, not in the way she wanted Royce Devlin to admit a possessiveness toward her.

She pursed her lips at Royce. "Is there something about my question you don't understand?"

"I understand it just fine." He swung his legs off the dash and leaned toward her. "More importantly, do you understand that Jackson Carter will hold you to the letter of the contract you signed?"

His question hit her like a cold rain. This wasn't at all the reaction of a jealous man. Unless it was another tack. She arched an eyebrow at him and simpered, "Are you afraid he charmed me out of a fair deal?"

"You tell me."

Megan's spine stiffened in spite of her determination to entice the swain from the man. "I held my own in negotiation with Mr. Carter. He offered me only a quarter payment in advance. I held out for half."

"Half is the usual term."

"Being a new builder, I think I did well to negotiate what experienced, established builders get."

"What other terms did you settle on?"

"The usual."

"Nothing out of the ordinary?"

This wasn't going at all how she'd planned. "Have you something specific in mind?"

"Deadlines."

"The ship has been assigned a completion date," she answered carefully, apprehension tingling up her spine. "Nothing uncommon in that."

"Completion date or deadline."

She drew a deep breath. "Deadline if it makes any difference."

"Deadlines are binding. Deadlines are not to be missed. Deadlines have consequences. Do you understand that?"

"I negotiated a liberal finish date. Only the direst of mishaps could threaten the launch."

"Accidents happen."

"A bevy of them would have to befall my ship in order to delay the launch by as much time as has been allowed. Anything else troubling you about my capabilities in negotiating a contract of sale?"

"I wasn't criticizing your abilities."

"Weren't you?"

"I just want you to understand that whatever terms are inked on that contract are binding."

"Thank you for pointing that out. I'd never have thought of a contract in that way if you hadn't."

"Look, Princess -- "

"I'm not your princess."

"You need to realize that you will be held to the letter of that contract no matter how uncommon or how ludicrous any of its terms might be."

The hairs at the nape of Megan's neck prickled. "Just what ludicrous term do you think is in that contract?"

Royce's fingers curled around the reins. "The blood clause."

Megan's fingers gripped the edge of the seat. "What do you know about the blood clause?"

"I know it's not customary to cancel a sale and demand full reimbursement of all advance fees should a drop of blood be shed during the launch of the ship."

"It's bad luck for a ship to be launched in blood. Mr. Carter explained that Mme. du Lac is an extremely superstitious lady. I made the concession out of simple good faith."

"That easily you conceded?"

Anger bristled through Megan, curling her hands into fists and snapping her shoulder back. "Only after Carter convinced me it was the one clause Mme. du Lac considered non negotiable."

"Making that stipulation legally binding is extreme."

"I either accepted the clause or I didn't sell my ship."

"Then know you will be held to it."

She glared at Royce Devlin. "What'd you do after I retired to my bedchamber last night, ply Mr. Carter with my liquor?"

"Not exactly."

Megan snorted. "I wonder if Mme. du Lac is aware her emissary has a loose tongue?"

"I didn't get the information from Carter."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Then where?"

"I picked the lock on your desk drawer and read the contract myself."

"I suppose I should have expected no better from a pirate."

***

Royce's neck was tight as a rigged line by the end of the workday, but not from nailing planks. He'd meant only to warn Megan, to make her vigilant of Desiré's terms.

And to restore that tenuous truce that kept their physical attractions at bay. Judging by her tone when she'd referred to him as a pirate, he'd succeeded, at least, in that last goal.

Dropping off the rest of the crew at their cabins, he drove the wagon to the stables, handed over the reins to James and sprinted off for the falls. The only thought on Royce's mind was to dive into that tormented water and swim until blessed exhaustion blocked all thoughts of Megan McCall from his mind.

But, in the center of the clearing beyond the windbreak of pines stood her phaeton. He took a step backwards, intent on retreating before she noticed him. But the carriage was empty and that fact stopped him in his tracks. She still needed help dismounting.

At least she had today in the yard. Though she hadn't leaned much on him. He should make sure she hadn't fallen flat on that prissy little nose of hers and broken her neck.

He strode forward. No mound of petticoats nor blue satin skirt were visible on the ground beyond the spokes of the high-set wheels.

He circled closer. He eyed the clearing around the buggy and grazing horse. There was no sign of her.

He eyed the river, its bank, and the waterfall. She wouldn't have done anything that foolish, would she?

He cursed and headed for the river. The little fool was lucky if she hadn't broken her neck, venturing out on the rocks by herself. How she'd even managed getting down from the phaeton on her own without falling was beyond him.

Scrambling out onto the rocky promontory, he found her cane weighting her blue gown near the horseshoe pool of water where he'd exercised the strength back into her legs. But not steadiness. Steadiness grew out of practice on dry land, on flat, sturdy land. Not from clambering about a pile of rocks.

A breeze kicked up, fluttering the blue, satin skirt against his ankles like a cruel joke. He cursed Megan for her recklessness. He cursed himself for being gullible enough to even look for her in the water, to even give the wall of water sluicing down over the hidden ledge a glance.

If she wanted to play games, she'd have to play them by herself. He wouldn't dive in and frantically search for her this time, not with her likely under the falls laughing at him.

Still, he couldn't make his feet carry him across the sun bleached stones away from the water. He could be wrong.

What he needed was reassurance that she was all right. He needed to know if she hid safely beyond the falls. But no pale arm beckoned from the cascade joining upper and lower river.

Yet, he sensed she was there. He felt it in his bones the way an arthritic joint knows a storm is on the way.

If only she'd reach out from that wall of water for him. Then he'd know her game.

He took a couple steps toward the grassy shore, testing her resolve. He paused and scanned the falls for a slim hand.

What if she wasn't on the ledge under the falls?

Royce kicked off his shoes and peeled off his stockings and shirt, muttering, "You're falling into her trap, Royce old boy."

He sank into the cool water. "You're going to her just the way she wants you to."

But he had to know she hadn't gone off and drowned herself. He had to know she was safe. Then he could leave her to her silly female games.

With long strokes, he propelled himself toward the hidden ledge where he'd already once lost control, where he'd sampled the passion possessed by a princess.

He'd tried to be kind about the rejection. He'd tried to be gentle. He'd tried to give her the chance to save face.

"Not this time," he spat into the waves. This time he would give no break to the seductress nor the innocent temptress.

Just let her be there, on the ledge, her pretty little mouth smirking and her thick lashes batting.

Just outside the wall of water, he paused, his toes gripping the slick stone bottom. Through the downpour, ghosted a pale form. Megan McCall in her drenched chemise?

Megan McCall naked?

Desire twitched in his groin. Even if she was naked, he would resist her. He was angry enough to prove to them both that he could. He growled and lurched onto the ledge.

Her back was to him, the drenched fabric of her chemise clinging to the feminine flare of her hips and climbing the track of her spine. Her shoulders shuddered. Weeping?

The sobs came in body wracking waves that Megan couldn't stop. Again and again, she asked herself why?

And again the reasons poured out like her tears.

She wept because she'd sold the ship the child in her had secretly dreamt of using to chase down the pirates who took her father from her. She wept because success brought closer the day Dunn could take Jaisy and their children away from her.

Megan wept because no amount of coinage in her coffer could remove the sting of being alone nor fill the emptiness where a heart had once beat.

Royce hardened his heart. She had no reason to cry. Still...

As a youth, he'd had his hiding places, secret places where he'd go when choices he'd made had been over-ruled, when dreams he'd dreamt were crushed. He understood strategic retreat. He understood why a person sometimes needed to take refuge.

He understood why Megan McCall, in spite of the success of selling her ship, might weep alone in a stone cave.

He should slip away unseen and leave her her privacy. He should leave while he still believed the illusion that she played no game on his behalf. But, if he did that he'd never look at her nor think of her without seeing the sob-wracked woman he hadn't comforted.

A hand touched Megan's shoulder. She started and looked up, even though Royce Devlin was the only person besides herself who knew about her hiding place. Even though letting him see her face was to show him how utterly vulnerable she was.

Even though he was the last man on earth she wanted comforting her now.

Her tear soaked face told Royce she played no game, told him he should have heeded his own advice and left her alone, dignity intact. But he'd had to know if she'd been play acting for him. He'd had to know what he was walking away from.

But he couldn't walk away from her now, not when she curled away from him and buried her face in her hands, sobs racking her thin body. He gathered her into his arms. She fought him, feet and fists flailing.

He held her tight, held her in the cove of his body. He held her until she accepted what he already knew, that she needed his comforting arms. He knew about needing comforting...and about not getting any...even as a lad.

He held her close as her fists stilled against his shoulders and her legs went limp across his lap, as she shed her hot tears down his chest.

He kissed the tears from the corners of her eyes. He kissed their tracks down her cheeks. He kissed them away as they gathered along her lean jawbone.

He looked up and found her watching him.

Is it enough for you, Princess? he asked with his eyes.

Her tear-spiked lashes dipped, shuttering away the answer in her eyes before he could read it. Before he could ask again, before he could decide for himself and retreat, she turned her head and her mouth met his.

The tip of her tongue touched his and he tasted the thickness of her ache, the depth of her despair. He tasted her loneliness.

Her fingers splayed through the light fur of his chest and skimmed the waistband of his breeches. His fingers found the bottom hem of her chemise and skimmed up her bare thigh.

She slipped the buttons at the front of his breeches free. He peeled off her gown. She shucked his breeches from his hips. He stripped the combs from her hair and raked the raven locks down over her naked shoulders, teasing the taut tips of her breasts with the slick, black, ringlets.

She closed her fingers around the shaft of his desire, laid back in the pool of their shed clothes, and guided him between her legs.

Easily, he slid into her ready heat. A year of abstinence almost undid him. A lifetime of searching for love focused him on the woman in his arms, a woman who needed more from him than the lust her flesh demanded.

Sliding his arms under her shoulders and hips, he cradled her from the reality of their stone bed. Megan McCall had known too much harsh fact in her short life. In his heart and soul, he knew her pain and he knew her need.

He moved inside of her, probing for the center of her void. And, when he found it, he filled her with himself.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

She'd been a fool to think she could control Royce Devlin. Their making love last evening had proven that. She may have been the one to invite him beyond embracing. But the moment he'd taken his place between her thighs, he'd ruled her body.

The third step up from the warehouse floor creaked in the echo of the slamming door. Megan's fingers closed over the cold coins she'd counted into her palm. There was no time left for vacillating, not with Royce Devlin charging like a bull up her stairs. She must restore their relationship to one of bondsman and mistress.

The breeze of his entrance shivered up her spine like a lover's caress. The muscles across her abdomen cinched in memory and she knew she had to stop him before he touched her or she'd fall victim again to her feminine weaknesses. Though she couldn't bear to have him linger, she uttered the first command that came to mind. "Have a seat, Mr. Devlin."

The current of his advance slammed and reeled against her back. Like a sorcerer's trick, the cold coins in her palm sapped her heat. She took no pleasure in turning away the man who'd shown her what a man and a woman could share with one another, who'd filled the void in her and gifted her with a memory that would warm her all the remaining days of her life.

But memory was all their encounter beneath the falls could be for her. She'd been misused by a barrister and a doctor who'd meant nothing to her. She'd been gulled by a husband she hadn't loved. She dared not give her heart to a pirate who swore on the honor of a gentleman.

"Megan?"

His voice, rife with confusion and hurt, ripped through her like the jagged teeth of a rough-cut saw. She reminded herself that the pirate could be adept at playing the wounded swain. Hadn't her own husband daily sworn adoration of her?

Her hand tightened around the coins until their ridged markings scored the soft flesh of her palm. She schooled a flippant edge into her voice. "Or you can remain standing. Perhaps that's best as you won't be here long."

"What's happened?"

The floorboard behind her chair creaked beneath his shifting weight. From the corner of her eye, Megan caught sight of his fawn hued breeches.

She forced her gaze to the doeskin pouch on her desk fat with coins. It reminded her of how she'd slid her hand down the shaft of Royce's desire to the sacks of his manhood. He'd been heavy and hot in her palm. The coins she now cupped were cold.

"What's wrong?" One broadcloth gloved thigh touched the arm of the chair near her elbow.

She forced herself to look away. "Nothing's wrong. I merely called you up here to pay you for services rendered."

"Services rendered?" His voice was oddly ominous.

"I believe you've earned this."

Struggling not to meet his gaze, she held up her hand to him and opened her fingers. Sunlight from the window glinted off the bright metal in her palm.

"I don't sell those services."

"Those services?" Megan blinked in confusion. But the minute she met his blazing gaze, his meaning became starkly clear. Her cheeks flamed.

"You misunderstand me, Mr. Devlin," she sputtered, the coins in her palm growing heavy. "I'm paying you for the handiwork you've done about Hillhouse."

"I'm sure you believe what you're saying," he growled. "Wouldn't want to upset that delicate plantation breeding with any vulgarities, even if they are true."

Megan's upraised hand began to shake. She emptied the leather pouch and dumped the contents of her palm into the sack. The clatter of the coins as they fell were sharp in the silence stretching between them.

She tugged on the strings woven through the leather, puckering the pouch shut. She held it up at him. When he didn't take it, she muttered, "Don't be a fool. For whatever reason you think you're being paid, take what you've earned."

His hands closed on the arm of her chair, and his breath plummeted her cheek. "If I took all that I've earned, Princess, you would not like it!"

Snatching the pouch from her hand, he straightened, pivoted, and strode from the office, from the warehouse.

***

"What do you mean, he didn't ride back from the yard with you?" Megan slapped her palm down on the kitchen worktable with so much force that her teacup jumped in its saucer.

Dunn dropped onto the bench opposite her and shrugged. "It's Saturday. Indentured's afternoon off."

Megan glanced out the open door, at Sarah lounging on a stone bench in the garden across the road from the house. Megan glared at Dunn. "Everyday this week he's disappeared during the lunch break. How could you let him stay in town?"

Dunn curled his broad black lips back from his white teeth. "Devlin's an indentured servant, not a slave. On his free time he can go wherever he pleases."

"But, what if what pleases him is to run away?"

Jaisy spoke from the end of the table where she sliced vegetables for the evening meal. "Mr. Devlawn not run away."

***

Absently, Megan rubbed the knot of reins tethering Gray Girl to the hitching post at the end of the pier. Jaisy's voice of reason hadn't reassured her. Not that past Saturday afternoon. Not Saturday night, when Megan had ordered Jaisy back to her own bed where her husband slept. Megan had wanted no further witness to her fretting over her bondsman's absence. She'd wanted no one to see her relief when and if he returned.

Of course Jaisy had been right. Though Megan had fallen asleep waiting at her window like an inept sentry. Jolted awake by a rising sun, she'd scrambled fast as her cramped and imperfect legs would carry her up the stairs to Royce's room.

The sight of him sprawled face down on his bed had halted her upon the threshold of his bedchamber. He hadn't removed his clothes and his shoes lay helter-skelter between the bed and door. The nearest one lay upside down, its exposed sole well worn. She'd have to have a new pair made for him.

But not for walking the miles from town after a night's drunk.

Small satisfaction, knowing he'd drunk away the wage she'd paid him. At least without coin, he'd not be welcomed at any inn.

Or so she'd thought.

But he'd left the shipyard at every mid-day break during the week since.

Megan snatched the reins from the hitching ring. Otis rushed to her side. "I'll give you a hand up, Missy Megan."

Settling onto the phaeton seat, Megan thanked Otis. But her gaze roamed the yard of workers taking their mid-day break.

"He not back yet, Miss."

Megan scowled. She hadn't realized her interest in Royce Devlin's whereabouts was so obvious.

She clucked and the gray stepped smartly. But clots of cargo laden flatbeds and plodding draft horses soon reduced them to a snail's pace. The idleness sent Megan's mind wandering. Where did Royce get the money for his continued entertainment?

She drew-up in front of the Red Lion Inn and was struggling to descend from the phaeton when Peyton caught her by the elbow. "'Twould be a shame for you to break your lovely neck, m'dear, especially after all you've already endured."

"Thank you, Peyton. But I assure you, all you save me from is a most ignominious descent."

"Ever the independent woman."

Planting her feet firmly on the ground, Megan smiled up into Peyton's ageless face. Was it the good country air, comfortable living, or good breeding as Peyton was so fond of pointing out that had maintained his and her mother's youthful appearance.

At least her mother had looked the young woman until the day she'd urged her daughter to marry an inept boy rather than the family friend. Megan frowned at the memory. Not that she'd favored marriage to Peyton. Peyton would have discouraged her interest in the family businesses more vehemently than had Peter.

Common. Beneath the well-bred female.

Peyton hadn't approved of her education either.

A waste of beauty.

He'd disdained her riding astride as well.

Not ladylike.

Had her mother understood a mating between Peyton and Megan would have ended a generations old friendship between the Hills and the Lyttles? Or had giving up all hope for her husband's return totally muddled Imperia McCall's thinking?

"Now what dire thought, m'dear, has turned that lovely smile of yours into a frown?"

Megan shook off the thoughts of her mother and smiled again. "I have no dire concerns these days."

Tucking her hand into the crook of Peyton's elbow, Megan nodded toward the inn's entrance. "Would you do me the honor of escorting me inside?"

"Will it also be my pleasure to dine with you?"

"Only if you've the stomach for some of my business."

"Do you never engage in simple socializing any more, m'dear?"

"Not unless it benefits business."

He sniffed. "You're becoming a boring girl."

"Does business make you boring, Peyton?" she challenged.

"Business is a man's forte."

She paused in front of the tavern door and tipped her chin up at her mother's childhood friend. "We are never going to agree on the subject of my independence, are we?"

"No. We aren't."

"Then we'll just have to agree to disagree."

Peyton swung open the inn door. It took a moment for Megan's eyes to adjust to the dimness of the tavern room they walked into. When they did, they focused on the square table directly in front of her. Or, more specifically, on the man filling the inside seat facing her.

Royce Devlin stared back at her, his eyes like flames, his mouth a flat line. Megan's pulse sputtered.

The elderly gentleman seated opposite Royce started to rise. "Megan. How good to see you."

Megan placed a hand on his shoulder. "Please don't let me interrupt you, Judge Telfair."

The judge patted Megan's hand. "Lavidia's back from abroad. Stop by the house. I know she'd like to see you."

She glanced at Royce. He seemed to have returned his attention to the cards in his hands. Or maybe he'd never been interested in her arrival at all. Maybe she'd read more into his squinting against the bright light let in by the open door.

"Perhaps later this week. Lavidia can fill me in on the latest fashions. Certainly even you, Peyton, would deem that topic suitable for the delicate female ear."

Across the table, Royce rocked back on the legs of his chair. Why couldn't she ignore him as completely as he could her? Why couldn't she follow her own edict and leave him where he belonged, which was anyplace but between her legs or in her thoughts?

"Fashion is an occupation more suitable to a lady."

The front legs of Royce's chair hit the floor with a heavy thump. "Are we playing cards here or not?"

The man to Royce's right, a barrister Megan didn't trust, snorted. "Eager as you are to get on with the game, Devlin, you must have a winning hand."

The fourth man at the table, a planter whose land bordered Hillhouse's to the south, commented, "As close to the vest as Royce generally plays his cards, I'm surprised by his slip."

No more surprised than was Megan by the company her indentured man kept, nor the familiarity with which men of prominence addressed him.

"Aaah," breathed the barrister. "Perhaps his intent is to make us think he has a winning hand."

"Then don't fold when your turn comes," Royce muttered in a low voice. "Stay in the game and force me to show my hand."

Had Royce Devlin's rusty eyes glanced in her direction?

Peyton inclined his head toward Megan's ear. "Your indentured man has been making himself quite a reputation among the gaming set."

"How industrious of him," she said on a tight breath, drawing a definite glance from Royce.

Whatever she'd expected to see in those rusty eyes, it wasn't condemnation. Megan lifted her hand from Judge Telfair's shoulder and tightened her grip on Peyton's arm. "I'll leave you gentlemen to your game."

"You don't have to hurry off," the judge protested.

"I've business of my own to conduct. Good day to you, gentlemen."

Royce scowled when Peyton Lyttle slid onto the booth bench beside Megan.

"I thought you were in a hurry to play this hand," snapped the barrister to his right.

Royce made a play and glanced at the booth in the back of the room. "Who's the burly guy joining them?"

Judge Telfair craned his neck to see around the patrons at the next table. "The fellow sitting across from Megan?"

"Uhuh."

"Don't recognize him." The judge studied his cards. "Though he might be the northerner who wrote to her about apprenticing in the shipyard."

"He looks well beyond the apprenticing age."

"Indeed. His letters describe him as an established Master Shipwright."

"Then why's he applying to apprentice in her yard?"

"Seems the man wants to learn how to build ships in the manner of her father." The Judge made his play. "He's come to learn the method."

The barrister took his turn. "You've been called, Devlin. Show your cards."

Royce spread his cards face up on the table in front of himself. The barrister flung his cards down. "Blast you and your luck, Devlin."

The planter shook his head. "Damn bloody lucky."

Folding up his cards, Judge Telfair sighed. "The least you can do, Royce my boy, is buy us lucky in love fellows a drink."

"Lucky in love?"

The barrister beckoned a round of drinks from the barmaid. "You've heard the saying, lucky in love, unlucky in cards. Or, in your case, lucky in cards."

Royce stared at his pile of winnings. He'd gambled the pouch of coins Megan had paid him into a respectable sum. The barmaid pressed her buxom bosom against Royce's shoulder as she served the ale and eyed his winnings. "Ain't you the lucky one."

If everybody thought he was so damned lucky, why did he feel so cursed?

***

Peyton helped Megan into her phaeton. "But, a full second crew, m'dear? Can you afford such an endeavor?"

Between Royce ignoring her and Peyton interrupting throughout her meeting with her new shipwright, Megan had developed a devilish headache. Before she could utter a word of protest, the inn door slammed open on its hinges and Royce Devlin charged out. Tearing the tie-down free of the hitching post, he elbowed his way past Peyton and vaulted onto the phaeton seat next to Megan. "I'll see Miss McCall back to her shipyard."

He slapped the reins against the gray's flanks. The filly bolted forward. Peyton jumped out of the way. And Megan slammed back against the seat.

"You're hiring a second crew," snapped Royce.

"My, what big ears you have, Mr. Devlin."

"I can't believe there's actually something on which your Peyton and I agree."

"Which is?"

"The foolishness of hiring a second crew."

"Foolishness?"

"I'd have thought you'd learned your lesson about overextending yourself with the first ship?"

"Learned my lesson? Might I remind you, if I hadn't overextended myself, I'd have had no ship to sell when Mme. du Lac came looking to buy?"

"Have you at least a contracted buyer in advance of building this second ship?"

"I don't have to defend my actions to you. You bedded me. Not wedded me."

***

Megan paced furiously between her daybed and bedchamber window. Darkness had long since cast its pall over Hillhouse. Just as Royce's failure to come home with the building crew on another Saturday had cast its pall over Megan.

Wrong. She wasn't glum. What she felt was no where near as benign as melancholy, not with the image of the whorish, Red Lion barmaid rubbing herself against Royce three days brewing in her.

Megan balled her hands into fists. The whore would have had half a day and all the evening to work her seduction on Royce. Even if he'd not gone to The Red Lion, he'd be someplace like it with a whore like the first flaunting herself at him. Megan was ready to ply the methods herself.

She sank to the edge of the daybed and let the craving consume her. More than ever she wanted Royce Devlin. More than ever she wanted, needed his hands on her.

More than ever, she regretted turning him away.

Where was he?

Probably between the legs of that Red Lion whore!

Her knuckles whitened over the head of her cane. She sprang to her feet and lunged toward the window. The hem of her gown entangled her legs. She stumbled, caught herself against the frame of the window, and sank to her knees.

Through the tears gathering in her eyes, through the trees silhouetted by the descending moon, she saw the movement of a horse and rider. In front of the stables, the rider slid from the saddle. He leaned unsteadily against the mount, a manly figure in spite of his sagging knees. He labored at the saddle's girth as the dark horse fidgeted. Then the pair melted into the shadow of the stable entrance.

Moments later, the man re-emerged. His hands fumbled at the fasteners closest to his own girth. The flap of his breeches fell open and he turned momentarily to the corner of the building where Megan had often spied the men of the plantation relieving themselves.

She rose and went to the table beside her bed. She reached for a candle, but her hand paused above the writing box sitting there. Lifting the lid, she fingered the top paper which was well inscribed with dates and initials.

The creak of the back door opening then closing crept up the stairwell outside Megan's open bedchamber door and over her raw nerve endings. She struck the flints to the candlewick but left the flaring taper on the table beside her bed when she stepped into the hall. She couldn't handle cane, candle, and Royce Devlin all at the same time.

Royce slid his foot onto the landing mid-way betwixt ground and second floors. A soft, yellow glow tunneled down from above. Blessed moonlight. He'd have lost his way home tonight without its guiding beacon. Maybe he should have.

Tomorrow, after he'd slept off the effects of over-indulgence, he'd debate that issue. Right now, he had a feather mattress and clean sheets awaiting him.

He pulled his arms from the sleeves of his jacket, gripped the garment in one hand, the balustrade in the other, and stepped across the landing. Above him, shrouded in glowing golden gossamer, stood what surely must be an angel. No mere mortal womanly curves could have made so perfect a silhouette beneath the shimmering cloth. He stopped in mid-stride and stared.

But the light about the head lit not a halo of fair hair. Liquor induced fog or not, he recognized those raven tresses. He knew the treachery beneath their crown.

Lucky in cards, unlucky in love, echoed his fellow card players' taunt between Royce's ears. This was the she-devil responsible.

Gritting his teeth, he lifted one foot then the next towards her, the night's events roiling inside his brain. His winning at the games the best yet, he'd promised himself the celebration of the serving wench who'd eagerly offered. But in the darkness of her room, the wench's kisses tasted not sweet enough and her volumes of flesh failed to incite. He climbed the last step before Megan McCall, a low growl rumbling in his throat as he remembered the humiliation he'd suffered at tossing down coin on the whore he could not use.

Megan hazarded a glance at Royce's male regions as he rose into the candlelight shafting from her bedchamber doorway behind her. The swelling beneath the loose flap of breeches tested the strength of the single button he'd refastened, tested Megan's self-control. She was fast learning she had little where he was concerned. Only the heavy scent of the Red Lion whore clinging to him kept her from pouncing on him right then and there.

"I see you've gained yourself a horse," she accused in a tone she hadn't planned to use.

He rose before her, his liquor laced breath pelting her cheek. "I'll earn its upkeep."

She resisted the urge to back away from his intimidation. She resisted the warning of her own ill-fated experience. She resisted propriety and common sense. Lifting her lips toward his, she breathed his name. "Royce."

His eyelids drooped. Was he remembering her eager mouth, her pressing curves, her welcoming womanliness? Every fiber of Megan's being screamed victory. But, when she grabbed the wayward ruffle of his shirt to pull him home, he stiffened.

His face, raggedly detailed by the candle's flame, loomed out of her reach; and his beautiful lips twisted into a thin line. "Let us make no more mistakes, Princess."

He turned toward the stairs to the third floor. She hooked him by the elbow, forcing him to stop.

"What happened between us beneath the falls was no mistake," she insisted.

The muscles in his forearm popped and jumped beneath the tight weave of his shirt, beneath the tense hold of her fingers. "You seemed to think so the morning after."

"My mistake."

"Don't make another," he growled and jerked his arm free.

She leaned close to him. "I smell the lust on you, that whore's lust. But she didn't drain you."

She reached for his breeches' flap only for him to snare her wrist between his fingers. "Knowledgeable as you believe yourself, Princess, you must realize your error. A man who has spent himself on one woman has so soon nothing to offer another."

The tone of his words, of his voice was low, menacing, like a curse...or a promise. "Tomorrow morning I'll be moving into the quarters with the other servants."

He tossed her hand aside and turned away from her. Megan's mind reeled. Her heart sank. Her rage flared.

She lurched into her room, to the writing box, and tore from it the top sheet of paper, the paper that evidenced how badly Royce Devlin sought to be free of her. Wheeling about, she pitched herself into the hall and at the thick banister curling Royce's ascending path.

"Do you see what I have?"

Her feral growl raised the hair at the nape of Royce's neck. Just shy of the top step, he paused and looked down on her. A pale sheet of paper shuddered at him from her tiny fist. He recognized the pattern of letters, numbers, and initials standing out from the cool lumination of a fading candle flame. In spite of the humidity glazing his skin in perspiration, he shivered.

"It's the contract you made me sign," she said, the savagery of her tone icy. "It's the contract of your shortened indentureship. I hold it in my hands I control what happens to it. I could rip it up, if I wanted."

"You wouldn't." He dropped one step toward her.

She tore the contract in half. He charged down the stairway, the sound of tearing paper as sharp as the crack of a whip. His feet struck the hall floor just as she tossed a blizzard of paper fragments into the air.

He caught her by the shoulders and slammed her back against the hall wall. Her cane clattered across the floor. His hands closed around her throat. The wicked vengeance in her eyes turned to terror.

Suddenly, Royce became aware of the pieces of paper snowing down on them, on the one snagged in his eyelashes, on the crushing strength of his hands on the delicate column of her throat. He staggered back, dropping his hands from her neck, and swiped the flake from his eye with trembling knuckles. He forced himself to turn, forced himself to lift one foot to the stairs, then another and another.

Megan coughed and stumbled after Royce. "I'm sorry," she cried out, grabbing the banister and pulling herself up the stairs after him. "I'll write you another contract. I'll give it to you to keep. Please, Royce."

She seized the tail of his shirt. He tried to shake her loose. She clutched the fabric tighter. "Lay with me. Just once more."

He reached back, gathered up a handful of shirt, and jerked. The cloth burned through her fingertips. But she hung on and dragged at him with her full weight. She didn't notice he'd peeled the shirt off over his head until he let go of it.

Her scream brought Royce around as all her pleas, as her protests and physical attack had not. She seemed to hang in stark relief against the banister, tottering on the edge of the step, his shirt clutched to her breast and utter surprise etched across her face.

He caught her before she fell and hugged her to his naked chest. An image of her lying broken and limp at the bottom of the steps quaked through him. Silently, he cursed himself for his damnable pride.

Her chin skimmed his collarbone. He tipped his face down. She raised hers and pressed her lips to his. He'd nearly lost her. He opened his mouth to her eager tongue.

Her fingers slid inside the loose flap of his breeches. Her palm grazed his shaft. His flesh responded with the readiness of a boy in full-blown puberty.

She closed her fingers around him and her lips buzzed against his. "Deny now that I incite your lust."

Anger swelled among Royce's passion. He lifted his mouth from hers. "Lust? Is that all you think me capable of feeling?"

"You're a man."

She spoke as though pointing out his gender was to accuse him of something heinous.

"A man accustomed to having any woman he wants," she accused.

"Is that all you think of me?" he countered.

"You are a man of the sea, of the world."

"A pirate?" His voice was ominously even. Did he tease her? She could play along.

Megan cocked her chin to one side, peered up at him through heavy lashes. "Aye, a pirate."

"With nothing more than lust on his mind?"

The low rumble of his voice sent chills up her spine. His words stirred delicious sensations in her. She ignored the danger of his thighs against hers pressing her off balance.

"Aye, lust." She twirled her fingers around the thick evidence of his desire. He throbbed against her palm.

"Then allow me to give the princess the lust she reveres."

This time, the chill of his words matched that of his tone. Apprehension shivered through Megan. But too late.

He shoved her down on the steps and pushed her nightgown up around her hips. He forced her legs apart with his knee. He pinned her in place beneath him with his weight. His kiss was hard and rough.

She tried to turn away. But his kiss only grew harsher. She pressed her fists against his shoulders. He pinned her arms back to either side of her head.

The edge of the step dug into her shoulder blades. The stubble of his beard abraded her cheek. His mouth bruised her lips and smothered her protests.

Where had the loving rogue from beneath the waterfalls gone? Where had the tender caresses and gentle touches disappeared to?

Where had the cherished, comforting feeling she'd experienced the last time, their first time gone?

Her chest rose and fell against his in jerky motions. There was nothing inviting in its ragged rhythm. There was nothing sweet about the sobs thickening the saliva in her mouth. There was no triumph in watching tears gather on her lowered lashes.

Guilt over-rode Royce's anger, his own hurt. He rolled off of her, the dimensions of the stairwell limiting his retreat. He pressed back against the uprights of the opposite banister and growled, "What's the matter, Princess, isn't lust what you thought it would be?"

Tepid air cooled Megan's swollen lips, swept chilly fingers across her exposed belly. She drew the shirt still clutched in one hand across herself as though a garment of his could chase away the loneliness and fill the emptiness of the cruel attack his withdrawal had left with her.

She pulled herself up onto one hip and looked at him. He was sprawled over the stairs, one heel hooked on the edge of a step so that his knee cut up between them. He slung a forbidding forearm over the crest of his knee. The candlelight seeping up from her room barely reached him. It was the cool fingers of moonlight from the hall windows below that outlined his condescending posture.

Ire burned away her fear. If rape had been his intent, he'd had her pinned. He could have ravished her at will. Instead, he'd chosen to humiliate her.

"Damn you, Royce Devlin. Damn you to eternal hell."

"I'm already there." His voice moaned from the shadow of his face.

How dare he grumble about his inconvenient state. She rose onto her knees. "I'll finish out your indentureship for you if you give me your able legs in place of mine."

He snorted. "You're most adept at making appealing deals. If they're not impossible to enact, you simply take them back." He shifted forward, cold moonlight detailing his set jaw. "But you can't have that part of me you demand. This time you don't get what you want."

All the frustration she'd suffered at the hands of men who swore allegiance to gentlemanly honor while robbing her of possessions, ability, and life erupted from her. She slapped Royce's foot from the step, bringing down his knee, toppling his arm, razing his arrogant pose. "I have lost all my family. I have lost the only baby I'll likely ever bear. I have been crippled and very nearly bankrupted. Do you think any of that is as I wanted?"

Knelt before him, one fist raised at him, the other gripping his white shirt to her breast, she looked every bit the woman of contradictions that she'd been the first time he'd seen her in Hillhouse's library, her skin stark white against the dead black of a mourning gown. Which woman should he address now? He knew which one appealed to his sense of justice. The one with the tears tracking down her moonlit cheeks. He exhaled, a long breath that eased the ache balled in his chest.

"I don't want to hurt you, Megan. I don't think you mean to hurt me, either. How about we stop hurting each other?"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"Yes."

Her answer was little more than a whisper. But that single ragged word brought him to her as her seduction and harassments hadn't. A gasp that was half wonder and half yearning escaped her as he gathered her up in his arms. Megan looked up into Royce's eyes. He looked back into hers.

"Please," she said.

"No more recriminations?"

"No more. Come to my bed with me."

"No."

"But -- "

"Not in another man's bed. Not tonight."

He rose with her cradled in his arms and climbed the remaining stairs to his room. Like the bud of a rose touched by sunshine, the first petals of Megan's heart opened.

Gently, he laid her down on his bed. For a moment, he stood at the side of the bed, looking at her. Her blossoming ardor turned on its vine as though seeking a sun that had slipped behind clouds, its prickly thorns raking uncertainty through her. Apprehension twisted among her exhilaration.

"Megan?"

Her name from his lips made her heart swell within the grip of the thorn studded vine of her desire. She swallowed hard, loving her name on his breath, fearing what she couldn't see in his shadowed eyes and her clouded soul.

"If it's only comforting you need, if you need only to be held," he said, his voice a tight whisper, "then all I'll do is hold you."

Did she wish only to be held? She let her gaze drift from the face whose features she could not see, down his broad, bare chest to where the wayward flap of his breeches strained with his desire. "But you need...release."

"I want you more than my next breath. But I'll not take you until you're ready. Trust me."

Trust him? He stood at the side of the bed, rigid with control. The flower of her desire lifted its head as though the sun had just emerged from a bank of dark clouds and burned away a wintry chill. Her body relaxed against the mattress. She smiled and reached for the scant scrap of fabric holding back his need.

His fingers encircled her wrist, holding them back from their objective. "Not yet."

He knelt on the bed beside her. He unfastened the front of her bed gown. With the tip of his forefinger, he spread the fabric away from her throat. The breath caught in her throat.

He spread the gown from her shoulders and brushed his lips along her collarbone. A contented moan surged up her throat. He sat back, smiled, and uncovered her to the waist.

Moonlight from the room's dormered window skimmed his naked shoulders as he leaned over her and outlined his fingers as they tweaked the dusky tips of her breasts. The sensation shot clear to her womanly core. She arched for him.

He nipped the tight skin above her belly button, making her squirm and squeal. He kissed the softly rounded flesh below. She drew a swift breath.

He nibbled a trail along the female flare of her hips. She giggled and gasped.

He spread her legs, his tongue trailing toward the inner side of one thigh. She turned shy, pressing her legs together. He sat back on his knees, but left his fingers sweeping the luxuriant mass of curls at the juncture of her legs. He looked her in the eye and whispered, "Trust me."

She eased a little. His fingers sank into the cleft of her downy triangle. This time, he groaned. "You'll be the undoing of me yet, Princess."

How so, she wanted to ask. But she didn't want to break the mood. She didn't want to lose the delicious feeling seeping up through her from Royce Devlin's fingers.

Tentatively, she parted her legs. He groaned again and the sound of his passion incited her, empowered her.

She opened her legs further, allowing his long fingers fuller access. He swept his thumb through the tangle of curls guarding her precious gift. He stretched out beside her and slid a finger inside of her, the pad of his thumb lightly circling the peak of her desire. She moaned and curled toward him.

"You were wasted on a boy husband," he murmured huskily and covered her mouth with his, his tongue mimicking the rhythm of his fingers between her legs.

The tremor began at the tip of his thumb, quaked through her, and cinched across her belly. No other man had touched her this way. No other man had ever stirred her heat and fed her fire. No other man.

Throwing back her head, Megan cried out. She looked at Royce Devlin through passion drugged eyes. Her body hummed, itched to be filled by him; and she spread herself to him in that ageless, innate, way a woman welcomes a man.

***

Megan stretched her apple filled palm through the fence rails behind the stables. Royce's dark mare scraped up the treat with velvety lips. "She is a beauty. Well put together."

"I knew what I was buying."

Megan gazed past Raven's black muzzle at Royce. He'd coaxed the sleek mare to him this morning with little more than a gentle voice and an apple. His first morning at Hillhouse, he'd spotted Cinnabar's quality with but a glance. "Where'd a pirate learn to gauge horse flesh so well?"

He scratched the mare's ear, making her twist her head and lean into him. "I wasn't always a man of the sea."

Megan eyed him from new peat black boots to auburn hair. He was a man of the earth, all mahogany, rust, and red clay. "What were you, Royce Devlin, before the sea captured you?"

"A boy who dreamed of breeding fine horses."

She heard the wistful note in his voice. "You could start with Raven and Cinnabar."

The dark centers of the rust-brown eyes flared with interest. "Are you making me a business proposition, Princess?"

Business. Is that all there could be between them in the end?

Megan rubbed Raven's velveteen upper lip. She glanced at the neighboring pasture where Cinnabar paced and stomped, trying to gain the attention of the new girl in the paddock. She shrugged. "You've commented on Cinnabar's quality. I just thought, he's been...under used."

Royce grinned at her. "Like some other fella you know?"

Megan's cheek flamed.

The muscles tugged at the corners of Royce's smile. Damn but she blushed more prettily than any woman he'd ever met. Then again, he'd never before encountered a woman who rose to his touch with the same mix of passion and innocence as she did.

He'd never known a woman braver nor more selfless.

He wanted to take her in his arms and give her the one thing she needed above all else. He wanted to tell her he loved her.

He wanted to confess what he was only now realizing for himself. He no longer wanted vindication for the sake of flaunting his success in the face of the one person who'd doubted him all of his life. He wanted his freedom so that Megan wouldn't suspect that's all he wanted from her. He wanted his holdings returned so she wouldn't doubt that it was her and not her remaining assets he coveted.

He needed her trust. And not just the trust a woman allowed an adept lover. He'd have to teach her she could trust him in every way just as he had taught her last night to trust him with her body. Before she could believe he loved her, she'd have to trust him body, heart, and soul.

No easy task given that she'd been betrayed by the promises of too many men.

Royce ran his palm down the mare's neck. "Want to ride her?"

Megan's face lit up like sunrise at sea. "Ride? Me?"

***

Raven moved between Megan's legs, her powerful muscles driving them over the grassy lane following the river upstream of the mill house. Megan had quickly relearned the familiar rhythm, her hips moving with each lunging stride, her body leaning into the curves and conforming to the seesawing motion of the animal's out-stretched neck.

The differences between riding the mare as opposed to Cinnabar were few. Raven wasn't as fast as the stallion. And Megan had never sat astride Cinnabar with a man's arms wrapped around her waist and his thighs pressed against her backside.

A broad, bronze hand covered the one in which she held the reins and amidst the wind whipping past her ear lifted Royce's voice. "Enough, Megan."

Megan eased the mare to a rolling canter and grinned over her shoulder. "What's the matter? Have you forgotten how to sit a horse?"

He put his mouth close to her ear. "No. I haven't forgotten how to sit a horse."

"She has an easy gait. Surely she doesn't bounce too much for you."

"One of the ladies between my leg does." To make his point, he flattened a hand across Megan's abdomen and pulled her tight into the crux of his legs.

The hard ridge pressed to her backside sent Megan's stomach somersaulting with giddy anticipation and scorched her cheeks with embarrassment. "But it's been only a few hours since..."

"And you think a man who has spent himself recently has nothing more to give a lady."

Royce felt Megan's spine go rigid. He'd meant only to tease her. But he'd forgotten the reason she'd spoken those words last night. He softened his voice. "I didn't use the whore."

She shrugged. "It matters not to me with whom you lay."

He grabbed the reins, and pulled the mare to a halt. Megan stared at the ground. He slid a knuckle under her jaw and urged her chin up until she had to look at him. "I laid down with the Red Lion whore. But I could think only of you."

She lowered her lashes. "Is that the sort of thing a sophisticated lady finds flattering?"

In spite of her bold words, the slight tremor of her voice revealed she was not as stoic as she pretended. Royce stroked her chin beneath her wan smile. "I don't know what flatters the sophisticated lady these days. And I don't care to know."

Her lashes fluttered at him, revealing a teary sheen to the sea-blue eyes. He stroked his thumb along the delicate line of her jaw until she looked at him again. "You were the only woman I emptied myself into last night."

She hid once more behind dipping lashes. "You lie sweetly, my passionate pirate."

"I don't lie at all. Someday you'll realize that."

Her lashes lifted. She wanted to believe. He could see it in her confusion clouded eyes. But she wasn't ready yet.

He swept the pad of his thumb across her full lower lip. "Trust me, Megan."

Doubt sifted across her features.

"You trusted me last night."

Passion mingled with the conflict in her darkening gaze.

"Trust me. Even if only when I make love to you."

The pupils of her eyes flared.

"Even if only for an hour at a time."

Her eyes widened, yielded...slightly.

"Even if only when I hold you in my arms."

She laid her head back against his shoulder. She parted her lips. He bowed over her and brushed his mouth across hers in a brief, chaste kiss.

"I'll never get enough of you, Megan," he whispered. "Do you understand?"

"Nor I you," she said, taking back the reins and guiding Royce's mare into the woods to a sun drenched clearing.

***

In the predawn hours Megan was awaken by a violent shaking. Disoriented, she reached across her bed for the man in whose arms she'd fallen asleep.

But the mattress beside her was empty and the face bowed close to hers was Jaisy's. "Miss Megawn. Come quick. Dere is trouble."

Groggily, Megan disentangled herself from bed covers tousled by love making rather than tormenting dreams or gripping muscles cramps. "What? Where?"

"A rider is come from town. Dere has been a fire in de shipyard."

"Fire?" Megan was fully awake now and grabbing for her clothes. "In my yard?"

The look in Jaisy's eyes was all the answer Megan needed.

"Have James ready my phaeton."

"He already in de stables."

"Dunn?"

"My husband fetch de crew from de cabins."

Megan fastened the skirt of her gown with flying fingers. "And Mr. Devlin?"

"I will check," Jaisy said, handing Megan her over jacket and racing off to the third floor.

In seconds the maid was back, her message the same as she'd delivered the first morning Royce Devlin had slept in the room above Megan's. "He not dere."

Minutes later, Megan emerged from Hillhouse's back door. James had her carriage ready and waiting. The morning mists swirled around her flying hem and swinging cane.

Jaisy offered her a hand up into the phaeton. Megan paused only long enough to ask James if he'd seen Royce's mare in the stables.

"No ma'am. She's gone from her stall."

"He must have set out with Dunn," Megan said, eager to explain away Royce's absence, at least for herself. She didn't need to worry about any wayward bondsman when her warehouse might well be burning to the ground...or her ship, heaven forbid.

She slapped the reins against the gray's rump. By the time they cleared the woods, she'd urged the filly to as much of a gallop as the carriage rigging permitted. She prayed for the ship to be untouched. The cash she'd been paid in advance, the cash she'd have to forfeit should she be unable to deliver the ship on time, had already been spent buying back her building crew's loved ones.

The carriage lunged through the haze drifting off the river where the road split between woods and bluff road. Sparks flew off the gray's hooves as they struck embedded rocks. The carriage bounced and swayed over the uneven ground. One wheel hit a hole washed deep by the spring rains. The force of the impact hurled Megan across the seat. Her shoulder struck the framework of the buggy hood. But she didn't lose the reins. She braced her feet against the dash and hung on.

Out of the scattering mist emerged a dark horse. Her neck stretched past where Megan's elbow braced against the phaeton's armrest. On her back was a man, his shoulder length hair ripping back from his high brow. Royce shouted at her, "Rein her in!"

Readily, Megan complied. Royce reined up the mare hard alongside the phaeton. "Are you trying to break neck? What're you doing out here at this time of the night?"

"There's a fire in the yard."

He went silent for a moment. "I'll drive."

He tied his mare at the rear of the carriage, climbed onto the seat beside Megan, collected the reins from her, and clucked the filly into motion. Megan collapsed against Royce's arm. "It mustn't be the ship, Royce. It mustn't be."

He slid his arm around her and hugged her close. Not since her father had last slung his arm around her shoulders had she felt as safe and protected as she did at that moment. If it was an illusion of a strong man, she didn't want to know. She needed someone to hold her, someone to stand by her through the ordeal she was about to face. In the shelter of Royce's arm, she told him what scant details she knew.

***

Royce strode across the beach away from the hulking bow of Megan's schooner. She'd been lucky the residents along the waterfront had responded quickly and doused the fire. Still, a good portion of the bow was charred black.

And Megan didn't look like she thought herself lucky. She stood just beyond the smoldering remains of boards that had been pried away from the hull, where he'd insisted she stay. The dawn light streaking across her slight form exposed the desolation etched across her soot streaked face.

Dunn reached her first. "We've lost most of the planking to the third rib."

Her knuckles whitened on the head of her cane. "The planking with the greatest angling, the hardest to rematch."

"But mostly only those on the near side," Royce added quickly. She looked like she was about to sink into the sand. He edged closer, but he didn't touch her. She'd welcomed his embrace on the road where there'd been no one to see them. But, the minute they'd seen the plume of smoke in the predawn sky, she'd pulled away from him.

"The keel's barely charred," offered the white shipwright she'd recently hired. "With a bit of shaving, the ribs are salvageable."

"Any idea how this started?" she asked in a weary voice.

Dunn's eyes blazed. "Started from the outside. If it hadn't, the keel would have burned first. Then she'd have been a total loss."

Megan swayed. Royce clutched her elbow through the jacket he'd draped over her shoulders.

She drew a breath. "Lightning?"

Dunn's fists tightened at his sides. "Last night was clear."

Royce wished she'd leave the questions until later. He wished Dunn would quit putting the worst slant on things. He wished Megan would welcome more of his support.

Dunn's already dark eyes darkened further. "Makes a man wonder if the fire hadn't been set intentionally."

"For what purpose and by whom?" she asked.

Dunn beckoned the youth who'd sounded the alarm. "Tell me again how you come to find this ship ablaze."

The whites of the lad's eyes shown like crescent moons from his soot stained face. He glanced uncertainly from face to face, finally settling on Megan's. "Like I already done said, miss. I snuck aboard yer ship after dark and found me a cozy place ta sleep below decks. The crackling of the fire done woke me up. I sounded the alarm, grabbed me a bucket, and started heaving water on the blaze."

Dunn dropped a hand on the boy's shoulder. "You telling me you didn't hear anything else? See anything else?"

The boy staggered under the weight of Dunn's massive fist. "That's right, sir."

"You didn't dump anything over that rail last night, boy?"

"No sir."

"Am I to believe a boy who'd steal a place to sleep?"

"Lay off him," Royce growled. "If he hadn't been asleep aboard the schooner last night, the whole ship might have been lost before anyone noticed."

Megan placed a hand on the back of Dunn's arm. "He's right, Dunn. We owe young Mr. Bradley our thanks for sounding the alarm. He could just as easily have fled to protect himself from being found out."

Dunn removed his hand from the homeless youth's shoulder. He eyed Royce. "You look like a man who didn't get much sleep last night."

Royce glanced at Megan. She colored and looked away.

Royce faced Dunn alone. "What are you implying?"

Pointedly, Dunn glanced at Royce's mare. "A fine saddle horse like that one gives a man a good deal of freedom to move about."

Megan looked at him then, a question in her eyes. She hadn't asked him how he came to appear at the side of her carriage as she raced toward town. She wouldn't ask him now, not in front of the others. She might not ask him at all. But the question would linger and fester.

Dunn planted his feet in the sand. "A man might ask how a bondsman could afford to buy an animal of such quality."

"I won her off an over confident gambler."

"You're more talented at the game tables than was the last master of Hillhouse. Is that not so, Mrs. Tallmadge?"

Megan blanched. Royce made a move toward Dunn. She held him back. "Roll out a keg of ale for our fire fighters, Dunn. We owe it to our good neighbors to at least quench their thirsts."

Letting go of Royce, she faced the barefoot boy who'd stowed a bed in the belly of her ship. "As for you, Mr. Bradley. You come back to Hillhouse with me. You're deserving of a fine breakfast and a clean pallet on which to finish your sleep. As long as I've a roof to offer, you'll not need to trespass again for want of a place to sleep."

Royce followed her to the phaeton and caught her by the elbow, a tenuous grasp she could easily break if she desired. He looked deep into the questioning eyes. "I could tell you I'd ridden up on your bluff this morning, to think. That that's where I was when I saw you race away from the house. But, you'll only doubt my word at this point."

She opened her mouth to speak. He pressed a fingertip to her tender lips. "Give trust a chance, Megan. Let it happen."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Trust me.

Megan propped her cane against the fence post and folded her arms over the top rail. Cinnabar raced around the confines of the pasture beyond. He and Royce Devlin had much in common. Primarily, both wanted the kind of freedom that their mistress dared not give either one of them.

She pursed her lips and whistled. The big, red stallion spun on his powerful haunches and came at her on a full gallop. His nostrils flared. His russet mane flamed off his neck. His hooves pummeled the ground, setting a new rhythm for Megan's pulse to match, an exciting, energizing, dangerous rhythm.

Mere feet from the fence where she stood, Cinnabar skidded to a halt, trumpeted, and swung his head over the rail at her.

Was it this kind of thrill that drew her to Royce?

Megan caught the stallion's head between her hands. Her knuckles curled against his upper lip. It made her think of Royce's fingertip against her lip when he'd silenced her in the yard and explained an absence she hadn't yet asked him to defend.

Had he told her where he'd been while fire ate away the bow of her ship because he was a clever pirate with a ready lie? To believe that he'd needed to lie was to believe he had something to hide. But a suspicious fire?

You look like a man who didn't get much sleep last night.

She could have ended Dunn's suspicion by explaining why Royce had appeared sleep deprived. She should have. But she'd been a coward, unwilling to reveal that she'd taken into her bed a man to whom she was not wed.

Or did a small part of her fear that Dunn saw things more clearly than did she? He had once before. And she'd dismissed his concerns about the lack of business being conducted at the shipyard, too easily accepting her husband's reasoning that his expertise as a planter made his familiarizing himself with the plantation first the more reasonable order of things.

Had Royce had time the night of the fire to leave her bed, ride all the way to the shipyard and back before she was even halfway to Norfolk?

Possible. Though she could think of no rational reason why anyone, least of all a man who'd filled her body, heart, and soul with himself, would purposely commit an act cruel enough to destroy her ship, her only hope.

But there'd appeared to be no reason for her husband to have acted as he had either. Not until it was too late. Not until the damage had been irreparably done. Though the evidence had been there all along. Jaisy and Dunn had hinted. Others had whispered. She'd been suspicious enough to ask questions. Which Peter had dismissed with ready explanations, explanations her grieving mind had too easily accepted.

Still, Dunn's accusations alone slanted suspicion in Royce's direction. And Dunn had cast suspicion in a number of directions in the week since her new white crew had joined ranks with Dunn's black crew working dawn to dusk readying the hull of the ship she'd sold to Mme. du Lac for repairs. And hadn't Royce reassured her they could repair the ship well in advance of its deadline? Hadn't he given himself fully into the project?

You're afraid yet to trust what your heart is telling you.

"Is Royce right, big fella? Am I just afraid of trusting in my heart, in him?"

Cinnabar nuzzled her cheek. Even at a stand still, the stallion's muscles rippled over his shoulders and across his flanks. Yet, for all his rampant energy, the big animal contained himself beneath the stroke of Megan's small hand.

She thought of the nights she'd listened to Royce pace the floor of the room above hers. She thought about how he'd restrained himself after that first kiss under the falls.

She recalled the night he'd closed his hands around her throat when she'd torn up their agreement shortening his term of indentureship. She'd been afraid. Then he'd pulled himself back when she saw he still wanted to do her harm. She'd gone after him, trusting that he wouldn't finish what his hands had itched to do to her throat as they'd pinned her to the hall wall.

She'd trusted. In those few moments, she had trusted him.

Let it happen.

He'd calmed, after they'd made their peace.

But did he calm to her touch as did Cinnabar, out of respect and affection? Or was that just another illusion, more wishful thinking on the part of a woman who longed for the love of a man who ignited her passion?

Such a man would have to win her trust before she would give him her heart. And she wasn't ready to trust Royce Devlin.

Cinnabar blew and stomped. She tickled his chin. "Restless aren't you, me boy? I know the feeling. I've picked through the lumber up at the sawmill so many times for any already dried to the angle of my ship's bow that I swear I could etch the pattern of each plank's grain by memory."

And she knew precisely why she'd repeated the process day after day. She didn't want to think about the accusations Dunn had made. She didn't want to face the possibility that the fire in the shipyard had been set on purpose. She didn't want to wonder if Royce had anything to do with it.

"Sometimes a girl needs distracting," she murmured, stroking Cinnabar's jaw but thinking of Royce and the dawn to dusk hours he spent toiling beside the other shipyard workers these days.

Her shadow stretched toward the plantation house. She stared at the red brick facade of the home where she'd grown up and the shutters Royce had recently white washed. She couldn't bear another long evening in that house without him.

Cinnabar thumped her shoulder with his muzzle. She smiled and scratched him between the eyes. "I know. I think too much."

He tossed his head and pawed at the ground, the energy rippling the muscles beneath his ruddy coat. Royce's muscles rippled when he made love to her, though the extended hours in the shipyard had cut into the time they had for lovemaking.

She ran her hands down Cinnabar's sleek neck. "Aye, you're a fine lad. But red haired or not, you're no substitute for my ruddy pirate."

The stallion gave her a playful shove with his nose.

"We both could use a little play time, couldn't we?"

Megan lifted her face toward the stables, thinking of Cinnabar's tack oiled and too long unused inside that building. "Play time," she murmured, wondering if she dared. Then, "Don't think. Trust in your heart. Act."

Cinnabar gave her little time for second thoughts. The minute James gave her a leg up into the saddle, the stallion danced on his toes.

The stableboy jumped out of the way. "He's powerful game for a run, miss. You sure you oughtn't wait for Mr. Royce to ride with you?"

"I can handle him," she called, gathering the reins until Cinnabar was backing through the dust churning up off his prancing hooves. Once she had the stallion facing the direction she chose, she gave him his head.

His powerful legs lurched them toward the copse of trees separating Hillhouse from the tobacco fields that lined the road to town. Much as she'd always favored riding upriver through the forest, open, unused fields better suited venting the pent-up energy of a stallion who'd been confined too many months to a pasture.

The breath huffed from Cinnabar with each lengthening stride. The trees they raced past blurred. The wind their dash created tore at the pins holding Megan's hair and sent a thrill rippling through her.

She dug her knees into Cinnabar's shoulders and leaned with the stallion as she guided him into a hard right onto the first lane past the one where the slave quarters were, where the shipbuilding crew now resided. Cinnabar could run the abandoned lanes partitioning the unused fields without endangering anyone else, without danger to himself or her.

And run they did. Like the wind. Like a ship riding high on the waves pushed by a fresh breeze.

Like a horse and a woman freed from the confines of a world that had tried to squelch their spirits, they raced the sandy roads, a vibrant point of light from which dust plumed.

***

It was the rolling dust that first caught Royce's eye. Then he zeroed in on the plume funneling up off the bright horse racing the far end of the field. If he didn't know better, he'd think it was Megan's red stallion veering off into the woods.

He dismissed the urge to ride after the horse and its rider as curiosity over who'd be riding Megan's fields. But, the minute he saw Cinnabar's empty pasture, the hairs at the back of Royce's neck bristled. When he saw Jaisy in front of the stables with James, her arms crossed tightly over her stomach, full blown alarm blanched through him.

"That was her I saw riding across the fields, wasn't it?"

"She off on dat devil horse of hers!"

"God's blood."

"You go. You get her. You bring her back," Jaisy demanded.

He looked back down the long road, toward where he'd seen Megan and Cinnabar race off into the woods on the far side of the fields. "I'll never catch up to them."

"You must!"

"I've no intention of leaving her racing through the woods," he growled, eyeing the windbreak of trees beyond the stables.

The river hooked in toward the woods edging the fields where he'd seen Megan riding. If he went upstream, he might be able to cut her off...that is if she still sat the stallion's back considering he'd last seen them charging into the woods.

Royce dug his heels into Raven's ribs. She lurched past Jaisy and James and charged through the windbreak of pines and past the sawmill. With Sam Coxe and his crew cutting nearer the mill, he gambled that Megan would steer the stallion clear of the workers...if she had any control of that horse.

He aimed the mare upriver, toward where the river cut into Hillhouse land. A tiny, sun drenched clearing sharpened behind his eyes. Megan had guided them to that break in the woods between the river and the tobacco fields the day he'd taken her riding with him. They'd dismounted there that day not so long ago and lain in the grass, in each other's arms, tasting and touching. Exploring each other.

But he couldn't think about any of that now. He had to find her. He had to stop that runaway horse before it killed her.

He leaned into the mare's neck. She stretched out, her hooves eating up the distance between him and Megan...he hoped.

They rounded a corner beneath the canopy of trees, and Royce spotted Cinnabar up the road. The horse wasn't running any more. He wasn't out of control. In fact, his rider seemed quite in control, posting her petite behind up and down against the flat saddle in counter rhythm to Cinnabar's trot.

"Megan!" he shouted.

She twisted in her stirrups, the grin on her face stretching from ear to ear. The pure pleasure in that smile touched him clear to his toes. Here was a glimpse of the girl she'd been, a girl he would only know in unguarded moments like this one...unless he could win her trust.

It was also a smile full of devilment.

She faced forward and flattened over the stallion's back. Instantly, they were off and running again. More angry than worried this time, Royce spurred Raven after Cinnabar.

With the edge run off of the stallion, the fresher mare gained steadily on the other mount. Royce's knee almost touching Megan's, he commanded, "Pull him up."

Megan peeked at him through Cinnabar's flaming mane, her eyes flashing like sunlight off a cresting wave. She didn't slow. He drove Raven forward and reached for Cinnabar's bridle. Megan veered the stallion off the road and into the woods.

Royce cursed, hauled the mare around, and urged her after his fleeing mistress. There wasn't room to ride alongside her. All he could do was dart through the trees after her and pray some branch didn't swipe her from the stallion's back.

Ahead, a patch of sunshine marked a break in the forest, the clearing where they'd once played lover's games. He'd have little space to accomplish what he must. He readied himself to make his move. She kept to the trail. He took Raven over a fallen log and came into the clearing alongside Cinnabar.

Royce caught Megan around the waist and dragged her off the stallion's back. She fought him.

"Quit squirming or I'll drop you."

She only laughed.

He reined up his mount and vaulted to the ground, pulling her down with him. She shoved herself free and bolted.

She didn't get far. She stumbled and plunged over a knoll out of which an ancient oak grew. Royce leaped after her. She lay in a heap in a gully between the roots of the tree, blinking up at him, a stunned look on her face. Then she elbowed herself up and laughed. "I forgot. For just a minute, I forgot that I can't run."

He squatted beside her and grabbed her by the shoulders. "You scared the life out of me."

"Sorry," she said through a sheepish grin.

He should have heeded the warning in the glance she gave his hands on her shoulders. He should have remembered how he'd found her three nights ago when he'd returned from the yard and gone to the falls for his nightly bath as he always did before going to her bed. She'd been waiting there for him, wrapped in nothing more than a smile and a blanket. Then she'd worn only the smile for him as she had each night since.

Now, he should have been more alert to the fact that his hands on her shoulders were all that kept him balanced on his toes. But he was so relieved that she wasn't hurt.

In one nimble move, she ducked out from under him. He tumbled onto his belly, but caught her by the ankle. She squealed and reeled back at him. They rolled, ending up with him on his back and her astraddle his ribs, her skirts pushed above her knees. She peered down at him from beneath her heavy, black lashes and teased, "Now who's got the upper hand?"

He slid his hand up her exposed leg and stroked a fingertip along the edge of her stocking top. "Who do you think?"

She grappled for his wayward hand. He skidded his thumb up the inside of her thigh before she could stop him.

"Let go of me," she ordered good-naturedly, bending low over him, low enough that he could see all but the ripe peaks of her breasts beyond her drooping neckline.

This time, he was the one wearing the grin. "I thought we were seeing who had the upper hand."

"All you're interested in seeing is down the front of my dress," she puckered, sitting upright.

He swept his thumb beneath the edge of the undergarment that was all that barred him from her most intimate place.

She grabbed his arm with both of her hands. "Stop that."

"You started it."

He wiggled his fingers. Color flushed up her throat and across the planes of her cheeks. She tried to skid backwards. He hitched his knees up behind her, blocking her retreat.

"The horses will run off if we don't tether them," she complained.

He peered over her left shoulder. His grin grew wide. "I don't think they're going anywhere."

"How can you be sure?"

She twisted in his lap and spotted the mare and stallion, just as Royce answered. "Because Raven is in season."

"Oh."

"Does what they do shock you?"

She raised an eyebrow at Royce. "I'm plantation bred and born."

"Then why are you blushing?"

"Probably because I've never viewed that process from this particular seat." As if to make her point, she squirmed.

He groaned. "Oh Princess, that's dangerous."

"For you or for me?"

"Depends on who wants what."

"And what is it you want?"

"You."

Her cheeks flamed. "Here?"

"And now."

"Like this?"

He trailed his fingertips up her bare inner thigh, the silkiness of her skin glorious to his touch. "Have you ever ridden a man, Megan?"

She shook her head, the look in her eyes sultry.

He pressed his palm over the heat at the juncture of her legs, a heat he felt clear through to the ribs she straddled. She made a small sound of pleasure and her eyelids sagged.

"It's like riding your stallion."

She made a small noise in the back of her throat.

His smile widened. "Almost."

He broached the final barrier of her undergarments, his fingers slipping easily, readily between her passion drenched lips. She groaned and arched back. His fingers sank into her in a way he wanted to sink another body part.

She spread her skirts over his knees, her fingers nimble on the fasteners of his pants flap. Royce grinned. "My princess is eager."

Her answer was a sensual smile.

He lifted her hips between his broad hands and cradled her against his updrawn knees. She settled down over him like they were two boards cut from the same limb. They fit like a well constructed tongue and groove. He filled her, every inch of her body, heart, and soul. A day would come when he'd leave her, and when he did, she would wither to death for there would be, could be no other man after this one who taught her how to ride a true stallion.

***

That night, Megan lay stretched alongside Royce, her head resting on his bare shoulder. In the guttering candlelight, she'd watched him fall asleep. She'd watched his nostrils flare and pinch with each breath and his coppery eyelashes flutter against his cheeks.

In the darkness after the light failed, she'd listened to his soft snores, his murmurs, his sighs. Did he dream of her?

She was a fool if she believed he did. He was a pirate, a rogue, a gentleman.

Trust me, he'd said.

Just for as long as I hold you.

Just for as long as I make love to you.

Just for an hour at a time.

But what about now, when his arms weren't around her and his body wasn't bound to hers?

She laced her fingers through the wooly thatch at the center of his chest. He sighed. It didn't sound like a charlatan's sigh.

Enough light seeped into the room for her to see the smile form across his lips. He didn't look dangerous, not with his mouth a sensual curve in the soft, warm glow.

Where was that light coming from? The candle had long burned out and no fire burned in the grate. The moon had set and morning light was long off.

The gold silk canopy overhead shimmered. She puzzled at being able to see it...in the night, without any light.

How could fabric shimmer and glow without the reflection of light? How could the hair on Royce's chest leap before her eyes like fire?

Megan sat up straight in the bed. The window in the opposite wall glowed an ominous red, a flickering, flaming red.

She scrambled from the bed and stumbled across the room. At the window, she dropped to her knees, her fear materializing before her eyes. The windbreak of trees that towered between the house and the sawmill were backlit as though the sun rose beyond them. But they were west of the house. West and it was night. Only one element could bring the light of daybreak to the towering pines west of the house.

"Fire!"

CHAPTER TWENTY

Megan didn't realize she'd spoken the word out loud. But Royce was instantly at her back, his hands clamping down over the crests of her shoulders and pulling her into the solid support of his body, his voice tight as a clenched fist. "Is it the mill?"

The next thing she knew, they were in the yard behind the house, the air heavy with the scent of wood smoke. Jaisy shouted for James to take the flatbed and fetch the building crew from their cabins and for the household staff to gather every bucket, kettle, and pot they could carry. Royce urged Megan piggyback style onto his back.

He ran for the windbreak separating the house from the mill areas as though her arms clutching him around the throat didn't strangle. He ran as though she was no burden to him, as though his own blood, sweat, and tears were turning to ash and smoke atop the falls. Megan could only hope that the blaze beyond the haze of smoke hadn't consumed the boards she'd hand picked for her ship's bow.

A wind kicked up from the river below the falls where, tomorrow morning, a flatboat would have been loaded with those one-of-a-kind planks and floated down to the shipyard. She prayed that it was one of the other piles of lumber drying beside the mill or even the mill blazing within the surging gray-red mass at the apex of the falls. Just not the planks she needed to replace those that had been burned from her ship.

That would be too coincidental to be called accident. That would be too devastating.

She and Royce crested the rise. The smoke walling them off from building and piled lumber reeled and parted. Flames, angry red and ravenous saffron, danced across the wood. Royce stilled in front of the conflagration, his voice tinder dry. "At least it's not the mill."

Megan slid from Royce's back. The ground beneath her feet seemed to heave. She sank against his ribs and curled her fingers into the folds of his loose shirt. "It's the planks needed to complete the ship."

Blistering heat seared her skin. Royce pulled her back from the fire. "Before an ember sets your skirt ablaze."

His voice sounded hollow in her ears. Or maybe it was the howl of the inferno eating up her future and the future of every person dependent upon her that turned human voices into mere echoes. Fate couldn't be this cruel. Only man could be.

Anger reared inside her, an anger as bitter as a husband's betrayal and as brittle as a young woman's dreams. She stiffened away from Royce and shouted, "Form a line with your buckets from the river's upper bank to here."

"Here?" questioned Royce.

"These -- " she swept her hand toward the lumber pile burning most fiercely, " -- are the planks most precious to our needs."

"They are also too far gone."

"Maybe the top ones. Maybe on their surfaces."

He shook his head. "They are beyond saving. Better to put our efforts into preventing the fire from spreading. Better to douse the neighboring piles that do not yet burn so deeply. Better to drench the mill roof before it catches."

"But these are the boards I need."

"And yon is the mill that can produce more."

"Not in time to finish the ship before its deadline!"

Royce grabbed Megan by the shoulders and forced her to face him, to hear him. "We'll renegotiate the completion date or find another buyer or other planks. These are beyond saving."

Her eyes turned glassy as a sea gone motionless before a storm and hard as a granite ledge. "In other words, trust you?"

Apprehension shivered up his spine in spite of the fire raging at his back. He nodded.

"Trust you and leave burning the boards I most need to complete my ship, to finalize its sale?"

"Yes."

"The last man whose orders I trustingly followed nearly destroyed me."

"Megan -- "

"You ask me to trust you, a man I have not known even as long as the husband who betrayed me."

"I'm not Peter Tallmadge."

"No, you are not. You are far more clever than he. You are a pirate as well as a gentleman."

Tearing free of him, she grabbed a water filled bucket from Jaisy and flung its contents into the flames. She stumbled with the momentum, forward, into the steaming heat blasting them. He caught her by the upper arm and hauled her back. "Hand your buckets off to me."

"And have you toss them where you will?"

"I'll toss them where you demand. Just get behind me before you set yourself ablaze and I'm forced to waste a bucket of water dousing you."

Dunn vaulted from the flatbed before it even stopped, his black eyes scanning the scene as he charged them. Royce saw the judgement and the blame in the dark eyes as Dunn stopped in front of them and jabbed his thumb at Royce. "He wastes your time and water on wood that cannot be saved."

"But they are the most necessary planks," Megan protested.

"And charred beyond saving." Motioning his men toward the stacked lumber nearest the sawmill, Dunn growled, "We should be fighting to save what remains. We should be saving the mill."

Dunn strode after his men, leaving her to face Royce alone. Her eyes met his. She wasn't a woman to shirk responsibility, even one as distasteful as admitting a wrong. Royce knew that about her, just as he knew she'd show him no weakness.

Her slim chin sliced the air between them. "My mistake," she said, her voice tight. "I'll inform Dunn of your innocence later. Though don't expect an apology from him. Given my history of making mistakes with gentlemen, his patience has worn thin."

"I'm not interested in any apology from Dunn," he said quietly. "I want only for you to learn that you can trust me."

Megan watched Royce stride away. She wanted to run after him and pound him on the back for being so blessed unpredictable. He should have been angry with her. He should have demanded apology from her, not trust. Not the one thing she couldn't give him.

Though she had entrusted to him the most intimate passions of her body. Though she'd trusted him to bring an oasis of pleasure into a life of pain. Though she had trusted him for as long as he held her, as long as he made love to her. One hour at a time.

The wind kicked up again off the lower river, funneling smoke and sparks into the air, skipping flames across fresh boards...burning up Megan's hope. Royce Devlin had been a diversion, a fanciful distraction amidst harsh reality. A man. No more. No less. A pirate and a gentleman no more dependable than the fickle wind that blew smoke in her face with one gust and in another let the smoke settle around the base of the sawmill like a slipped halo.

She staggered into place among those handing buckets forward and back between the mill house perched upon the falls and the back waters from which they filled their buckets. She had no time to think about a man who demanded trust, even as the flames backlit him in a hellish light. Even as soot blackened the shoulders of his white shirt.

Even as he climbed a ladder through the ring of smoke encircling the mill house and hurled the contents of his bucket across the roof.

Sparks rained down on the wood shingles, nestling into dry cracks beyond the splashing water. Like her hope, those embers glowed quick and hot.

She concentrated on the buckets passing through her hands, on not spilling a drop of water. Perhaps happiness was meant to be as fleeting as the sparks dying against water doused shingles.

A cry went up from one of the men. "Fire on the peak."

She looked up. Flames leaped near the apex of the roof, a small fire but one beyond the reach of water flung from a bucket held by a man standing on the top rung of a ladder braced to the side of the building.

Royce crawled onto the roof. Dunn took his place on the ladder, handing him a full bucket. Royce doused the small fire. But another had flamed to life further out on the roof.

Royce, straddling the peak, inched his way toward the new flames, toward the far end of the roof where the building hung out over the falls. Megan's fingers fumbled on the handle of the bucket passing through her hands.

As quickly as Royce doused one fire, another popped up, drawing him ever further from the ladder. A knot coiled in Megan's stomach.

Dunn now clung to the shingles, a massive black shadow against the pale wood shingles. He handed buckets between Royce and Otis who'd climbed onto the ladder. The knot tightened.

The ever-changing wind skittered up Megan's sweat-soaked spine and rifled through her unbound hair. A dozen tiny fires erupted from the shingles between Royce and Dunn. The tower of smoke pluming into the sky eddied and slammed back on itself. Like a widow's veil, smoke dropped over the sawmill. The last Megan saw of Dunn, he was curling away from the fire and smoke. Her last sight of Royce was of his loose, auburn mane reflecting the firelight like flames.

The knot cinched in Megan's gut. She bolted from the line, not thinking about the uneven ground nor her unsteady gait, uncaring of the pain shattering from her hip with each step.

One man staggered from the smoky veil. Otis. Megan and Jaisy clung to each other, Jaisy's face mirroring Megan's anguish.

Then a second man stumbled to safety, big and black. Jaisy dashed to Dunn's side, wedged her shoulder beneath his arm, and helped him clear the worst of the fire and smoke.

Megan stared at the spot where Dunn and Otis had emerged, waited. But no broad shouldered man with auburn hair appeared. No white shirt shown like a beacon through the shroud of smoke hanging between her and the man she dared not trust.

Megan McCall no longer cared that Royce Devlin was a pirate who recited a gentleman's oath of honor. She no longer cared that she didn't trust him. She cared only that he live, that he hold her in his strong arms and love her with his masterful body.

She stumbled toward the flames. Otis blocked her charge. "We tried to reach him, miss, but there's too much smoke."

Megan reeled toward Dunn who was on his hands and knees, Jaisy's hands on his shoulders steadying him as he gulped breaths. "You left him on the peak of the roof? The far peak?"

Dunn peered up at her. "Devlin can...take his chances...with the river."

"What chances?" she howled. "The peak where you left him overhangs the falls!"

A team of horses drawing a wagon charged into the clearing beyond the woodpiles. Sam Coxe and his wood cutting crew poured from the flatbed, axes and shovels in hand.

"The smell of smoke woke us," Coxe shouted as he sprinted up to them. "Ain't a wood cutter worth his salt that don't come alert to that scent. Where you want us?"

"Watering down the mill roof," croaked Dunn, "if there's a roof left."

"There is," choked out a smoke-roughened voice from the riverbank above the mill house. "Least there was...when I jumped off it."

Megan was the first to reach Royce, hers the first hands tugging him onto the riverbank, hers among those dragging him onto the grass. The muscles across his now naked back and shoulders stood out in stark relief, evidence of a hard struggle. Evidence of how close he'd come to not surviving.

She crumpled to her knees and slumped back onto her heels, her arms still around his shoulders. His back draped her thighs and she pillowed his head against her bosom.

"How?" she demanded.

His sides heaved for air. "Used my shirt...to beat out fires. Got down the far slope of the roof...as far from the falls as I could...and dropped into the river."

"You could have been swept over the falls. You could have drowned or been dashed against the rocks below."

Around them, ship builders and wood cutters handed a steady stream of buckets back and forth, a blur of activity no longer important to Megan. All that mattered to her was the man in her arms gulping air. "You could have been killed!"

He grinned up at her and rolled his cheek against her breast. "And missed this?"

Megan shoved Royce from her lap. "Damn you Royce! I'm worried sick and you're playing the rogue."

He levered himself up onto his elbows. "A little gallows humor, Princess. That's all. Trust me."

"Trust you?" she wailed, slamming her fists against his shoulders. "I can't even trust you to stay alive!"

He rose to his knees, enveloped her in his arms, and gathered her against his chest. She struggled, raining him with blows from her tiny fists. He hugged her closer. "Let it out, Princess. Let it all out."

And she did. She battered him until her muscles went limp with exhaustion. She railed at him until her throat was too dry to make a sound. Then she collapsed against him and sobbed until she had no tears left, until unconsciousness took her.

***

Royce dropped to his knees at the hearth in the master bedchamber, Megan still cradled against his chest. With the addition of Coxe's crew, the fire had been brought quickly under control.

But Megan hadn't awakened. Not as Sam and his men volunteered to stay the rest of the night guarding the mill against any flare-ups. Not as Jaisy sent Ester and Sarah to the storehouse for apple cider, ham, and biscuits to feed everyone. Not even as Dunn loudly voiced his suspicion that the lumber pile intended for the ship's repair had been, like the ship's hull, doused with something flammable.

Royce had tucked Megan's icy flesh against his chest, giving her all the heat his battered body could spare. He'd whispered promises and encouragement against her temples, her chin, her pale cheeks. When she still didn't wake, he'd carried her pale, chilled, limp body past the lumber pile that had burned far quicker than the rest, the lumber upon which she'd staked her future, lumber that was now no more than charred boards and ash.

One handed, he dug tinder from the box beside the hearth. Jaisy appeared at his elbow and set spark to the shavings. A frail flame flared, gobbled up the dry offering, and faded. He blew on the dying embers, demanding life from them. Jaisy added more tinder, then kindling when the flames hungered for more.

"We must make her like de fire." Jaisy crooned. "Hungry."

"I will. I can," he rasped, tucking her forehead under his chin and hugging her close. "I'll coax her awake."

"She will not open her eyes dis night."

"Then I'll make her feel my presence." He rubbed his palms up and down her thin arms.

Jaisy's hand touched his shoulder. "Her weariness goes deeper dan de body."

He buried his face in the cool, raven locks at the crown of Megan's head. He inhaled, inhaled deeply in quest of the sweet scent that was his princess. But a smokey fragrance possessed her now, the smoke of a devastated dream and a dying future.

He cinched her small, cool body nearer, his voice roughened by smoke and sorrow. "She needs a hot bath."

Jaisy's hand slid from his shoulder. Minutes later she and Ester returned with a hammered metal tub. They brought in steamy buckets of water. When the tub was full, Jaisy touched Royce's shoulder once more. "I take care of her now."

He shook his head.

"But -- "

"I won't leave her!"

Jaisy drew back her hand. He didn't know if she'd relented or if the whisper of her skirts behind him only meant she was searching out a weapon to use in coercing compliance from him. Before he had to decide how far he'd go to defend his claim on Megan McCall, the maid stepped back into view and positioned a privacy screen around the tub and hearth.

"To keep in de heat," she said then left the room, left Megan to his care.

Quickly, he stripped away Megan's clothing. But, when he would have lowered her into the steaming water, he hesitated. She lay so limply in his arms that he feared she'd slide under the water if his weary arms so much as faltered.

He laid her on the fluffy bath sheet in front of the blazing fire while he stripped off his own clothes. Then he hefted her in his arms, stepped into the tub, and sank into the steaming water.

He cradled her between his updrawn knees, her back to him. He let her slide down his chest until bath water lapped against her chin.

Across the room, the door from the hall opened and closed quietly. Cool air swept around the screen and over Royce's shoulders. The soft steps of a woman approached.

Jaisy stepped around the screen, a teapot and cups on the tray in her hands. If his presence in the tub with Megan shocked her, she didn't show it. She just set the tray on the low stool beside the tub where wash cloth and soap had been left.

"Herbal tea, for your throat," she said.

"Thank you."

The maid started to turn. Royce stopped her with a question. "Has she ever been like this before?"

Jaisy looked at him through her cat-slanted eyes. She nodded. "When she take de drugs."

Dread skittered up his spine in spite of the hot water encasing him. "How did you get her through that ordeal?"

"I did what you do. I stayed wit' her."

"And that was enough to bring her back?"

Jaisy shook her head. "She come back because she have de will to survive."

Jaisy slipped beyond the screen. The bedchamber door clicked softly shut. Royce folded his arms over Megan. "Stay with me, Princess. This is just one more gale in a season of storms. Calm seas lie ahead of you, I promise."

Even if I have to sell my soul back to Desiré du Lac to get your deadline extended to make it happen.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The first thing Megan saw when she opened her eyes were glowing embers. She sat bolt upright before she realized the embers burned safely on a fireplace grate.

"It's okay, Princess. You're safe." Royce's voice was husky against her spine, smoky, and warm as the morning sun seeping through the room.

"The fire," she said, remembering.

"It's out. We saved the mill."

His naked chest brushed her bare shoulder as he sat up behind her. She glanced about, registering where she was, noticing the tub behind them.

"You were cold," he said. We thought a hot bath -- "

"Jaisy bathed me and left me with you, like this?" Her fingers flexed beneath the quilt against her bare thigh.

He tucked the edge of the quilt up over her shoulder. "Jaisy left you with me. But she didn't bathe you."

Megan twisted on her hip and searched Royce's eyes for truth. "Jaisy's never entrusted my bath to anyone but herself."

"She trusted me with the job last night." The rusty gaze didn't waver.

Megan sank back against Royce's shoulder and traced his unshaven chin with her fingertip. "You look more the pirate this morning than you did the day you came to Hillhouse."

"Do you wonder how Jaisy could leave your care to a pirate?"

"No." She flicked a tousled, auburn lock back from his brow. "I wonder how she dared leave a rogue to bathe me."

The rusty eyes darkened. "She didn't have a choice."

Alarm blanched through Megan. "Was someone hurt by the fire? Did she have to tend them?"

"There were no injuries save for dry throats and eyes."

"Then, why didn't she have a choice?"

"I wouldn't entrust your care to anyone but myself."

There'd been a time when Megan had dreamed of hearing words devoted as those, the kind of words her father might have spoken to her mother. But she'd learned the hard way that not all men who promised to take care of a woman spoke the truth. She pulled her hand back from Royce and turned away, tears glazing her eyes.

"What is it, Princess? Something I said?"

Something you are.

Something I dare never surrender myself to.

Something I can never trust.

"I was thinking about the fire," she answered evasively, "about how easily we could have lost someone to it." About how trust hadn't seemed so important last night when I feared I'd lost you.

"But we didn't," he said. "And it's over now."

She resisted the draw of his arms to either side of her, of him behind her. "I'd better get up to the mill and see what of use remains."

He crossed his arms over the quilt covering her, preventing her from getting up. "What's the hurry, Princess?"

"I've a ship to finish."

"And no lumber to do it with, leastwise none dried."

The blood flowing through her veins went cold. "I hope you're not suggesting I use green wood."

"Because no ship built in McCall Shipbuilding yard has ever been built with green wood?"

"And none ever will be!"

He said nothing. Yet, his silence said more than she cared to hear. She drew away from him.

"You think I'll have to use uncured wood this time because the freedom of too many people depend upon that ship being done by the deadline date."

"I think you might have to."

Cool air and regret shimmied down her exposed spine. She shook her head.

"Once tarred or painted," he argued, "who's to know what kind of wood lies beneath?"

"Every man who applied a green plank," she shot back. "Every person passing the yard who sees my shipwrights nail to the frame a board that will shrink and twist, a board that will not weather well, that will rot before its time."

"It's one ship."

She sliced her chin up at him. "She's my first ship."

"You aren't building her just so a handful of slaves can go free, are you?"

Had he figured out why she'd designed a ship slimmer and sleeker than any asea? Megan drew her knees up in front of her and hugged them against her chest.

"If you seek only to free Jaisy and her kind," he continued, "there are shorter, easier routes to that end than by building a ship on speculation with a bow of questionable angle."

Tears gathered in Megan's eyes. "I suppose, when I started, I fancied myself avenging my father's death."

"You were going to hunt the pirates down yourself?"

"A rash ambition born out of rage."

He slipped his arms under the blanket and gathered her back against his warm, sturdy chest. "Aah, Princess. I wish I could have been here for you then."

He kissed the corner of her mouth with infinite tenderness. "But you sold your ship," he said and pressed his cheek to hers. "What made you change your mind?"

His whiskers pricked her tender skin. She didn't draw away. After nearly losing him, she wanted everything that was Royce Devlin, pleasure or pain.

Closing her eyes, she answered. "Reality. I couldn't walk let alone navigate a ship's many decks."

"But you walk now." His voice was deep and soft, like the groove in a down filled mattress beneath two lovers.

Tears trickled down her cheeks. She stroked the furry backs of his arms. "Thanks to you, my gentle pirate."

He kissed the wet trail at the crest of her cheek. "Why do you weep, Princess?"

She smiled a bittersweet smile. "Because the goal hasn't changed. I but altered it."

His body curled protectively around hers. "How?"

He smelled of bayberry soap and sea salt with a dash of smoke. He smelled of things familiar, safe, yet dangerous.

"My slim design will outrun any ship afloat." She peered up at him. "Do you understand?"

"You believe she'll outrun any ship sailed by a pirate."

"I know she will."

"So you think to give the merchant the advantage."

"Aye."

"You intend a revolution with your fleet ships."

"Aye."

"That's why you hired the second crew, a crew of freemen. So they'll be trained in your way when you free the slaves."

She nodded and drew a fingertip along his jaw. "Promise me something, Royce. If you somehow get out of this bondage, if you escape your indentureship, don't go back to your old ways."

"Megan. I'm no pir -- "

She pressed her finger to his lips, silencing him. Then she replaced the fingertip with her lips. She couldn't bear him lying to her, not now.

***

Royce hefted a board onto the sawhorses in the saw pit and marked what the sawyers needed to shave off. As ever, his eye strayed toward the loft office window where Megan worked. The weeks since the fire at the mill had taken a heavy toll on them all, but none more than her.

The morning after the blaze, they'd gathered in front of the charred timbers that had been set aside for the repair of her ship arguing over who had motive to cause Megan trouble. Tommy the dismissed shipwright and Mannie the Smith had been quickly eliminated. But, where Jubal Toombs' name had topped Royce's list, Royce's was first on Dunn's. Megan agreed with Dunn only that Toombs was too lazy to expend such effort for revenge.

Yet, in the nights following, when Megan lay in his arms, she'd hush him when he'd tried to speak of the fires as though she couldn't bear the sound of his voice. Then she'd curl her body around his and abandon herself to the mating of their flesh.

Then she'd fall into a deep slumber and he'd lay awake wondering. Did she silence him to keep the horror from their pleasure? Or did she, like Dunn, suspect he played a part in the fires that threatened the futures of every resident of Hillhouse?

Yet, she'd trusted him to traverse the Tidewater in search of replacement lumber. Never, though, without Otis' escort.

Royce rubbed the back of his neck. For a while, he'd feared she only went through the motions, that she'd given up. Then, a week after the last fire while having tea at the big table in the kitchen, she'd noticed the warped wooden shelf above the steeping pot. That's when he knew she hadn't given up.

But he still didn't know if she suspected him capable of laying with her and plotting against her at the same time. For all his efforts, Megan McCall still barred him from her heart and closed her soul off to him.

The clatter of hooves striking the pier between warehouse and shipyard jarred Royce from his thoughts. By the time Jackson Carter vaulted from the back of his mount, Royce was on the pier intercepting him.

"It's not as bad as it appears," he said in a rush.

"Not as bad as it appears?" howled Carter. "How about as bad as I've heard."

Royce glanced up at the open warehouse window high above their heads and flattened his hands in a silencing gesture. Jackson lowered his voice, but barely. "I've just come from the wood carvers where I went to check the progress of the decorative woodwork for the interior of Desiré's ship. Imagine my surprise to hear, from the wood carver, that the launch of my employer's ship is not as imminent as expected!"

"There's a week yet before the deadline."

"A deadline, I remind you," Jackson growled, "that your Miss McCall pooh poohed as more than adequate. She led me to believe that should I stop by any day this week I'd likely find the ship painted and awaiting launch but for my attendance."

"There's been trouble."

"So I've been informed and, might I add, not by the people who should have been doing the informing!"

"We couldn't very well track you down what with the haphazard trail of business you leave."

Jackson rocked back on his heels and nodded in the direction of the schooner yet draped in scaffolding, shipwrights, and caulkers. "That ship will not be ready in a week."

"We've every man employed by this shipyard working on her."

"If you had every man in this waterfront working on her," Carter railed, "you still could not lay her planks any faster than one-row-at-a-time and you know it. There is no way to complete her by the contracted launch date."

"Then extend the deadline."

"Desiré doesn't renegotiate."

"The devil take Desiré," snarled Royce. "The only way she'll know is if you tell her."

Jackson laughed a humorless laugh. "Do you think she has trusted the watching of you to only me?"

Royce's head snapped back. He eyed Jackson narrowly. "What delays the launch of this ship is someone's destructive hand. Has that anything to do with my being involved in its construction?"

"That's not her way, Royce, and you know it."

"What I know," Royce growled, "is that Megan McCall could easily give you that ship on time were she the kind of builder who'd use green wood. But she'd rather lose the sale than build a ship with even one board that will rot before its time."

"Your lady, she has pride. As does Desiré."

"Desiré's overdone pride be damned," snarled Royce, his patience splintering. "I'll advise Megan to launch by the contracted date, gaping hole or not."

"That's not a completed ship."

"All the contract deadline calls for is a launch."

"No court will condone your sticking us with a partially done ship. Launch implies completion." Carter shook his head. "No. If your lady's pride is lofty enough to keep her from using green wood, she'll not stick us with an uncompleted ship."

"Of course she won't," Royce snapped. "But she could complete the ship after its launch, thus satisfying both Desiré's contract and her own pride."

"Complete it in the water?" Carter snorted. "Her shipwrights would have to hang from ropes over the rail of a bobbing boat with the planks being lowered onto their heads. That's too much risk to life and limb."

"Then use the good judgement Desiré expects you to use as her representative and extend the deadline."

"I'll damn well use my good judgement for Desiré's purpose. Not against it. At this moment, that means reminding you of the superstitious nature of that lady and the terms of the contract regarding the launch. Desiré will regard anything as ill-advised as completing a ship in the water as party to its launching."

Jackson thrust his face so close to Royce's their noses almost touched. "One drop of blood shed and Desiré will nullify the contract."

Megan flung the warehouse door open. Part of her had meant to make a stealthier entrance, but not because she'd overheard Jackson Carter's heated words. She'd thought of easing open the door because Royce's response had been too low for her to hear, because whatever Mme. du Lac's emissary had said after his initial blast had been hushed. She should have sought to discern what the two hid from her. Instead, she'd told herself that Royce only worked to quell Carter's temper.

But the expressions on the two faces swinging at her didn't allude of tensions diffused. Carter's lips were thinned to little more than a hard line. Royce's eyes flashed alarm. But alarm for whom? Her? Himself? Had Dunn been right all along? Had she caught Royce Devlin in the midst of chicanery? Had she once more played the fool for a man?

Megan stepped out onto the pier, her heart pounding, her palms damp. She dried her hand against her stomach as though smoothing the front of her bodice-fitting jacket. She stepped toward the two men caught in a silent frieze, her royal blue skirt rippling against her ankles threatening to trip her up before she even reached Jackson Carter.

Or had Royce already dealt her the death blow?

Stiffly, he stepped aside, making way for her. Megan raised her hand to Jackson, her best smile pasted in place, a cordial tone schooled into her voice. "Mr. Carter, we've been expecting you."

Carter's icy gaze flicked past her right shoulder, to where Royce stood. Her spine tingled at the proximity of the man who'd revived her dying heart with passion.

Carter bowed and brushed his lips against the backs of her knuckles. When he straightened, his face was a congenial mask and his tone nonchalant. "I understand you've had some trouble."

She gave herself a mental shake, clearing her mind of Royce Devlin and reminded herself that Jackson's smile was as false as her own. Matching the unruffled lilt of Carter's voice, she puckered, "A few boards burned. Nothing that can't be remedied."

One of his tawny eyebrows lifted. "Truly?"

"Come," she said, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow. "Let me show you what we're doing."

She and Carter made their way off the pier and across the beach to a long, low building walled in canvas. Royce followed, his white shirt visible from the edge of her vision like the sail of a ship on a distant horizon running a parallel course. Could it be possible that they strove for the same end?

Or had desire blinded her to a pirate's tactic?

She swung her cane toward the nearest corner of the structure. "Mr. Devlin, would you do the honor?"

With one, broad hand, he drew a flap of canvas back from the framework of saplings. Wet heat blasted Megan, evoking a memory of two bodies entangled by passion on a sultry summer night.

She spoke quickly, trying to blot out the image that brought a flush to her cheeks quicker than did the steam. "We heat stones over low banked fires, then pour water over them to create steam. The steam permeates the planks, making them pliant. We then wedge them between stakes to the angles we need."

She smiled up at Carter. "The method uses the same principle as soaking boards in brine. But it's quicker."

Carter didn't smile in return. "Quick often translates to a job done with less quality."

The seriousness of the job at hand focused Megan on the man who'd used charm and wit to negotiate the uncommon terms of her ship's sale where others would have blustered and bullied. She cocked her chin at Mme. du Lac's emissary. "I assure you, Mr. Carter, your employer's ship is being tended with the care of hand maidens making ready a virgin princess for her prince."

One corner of Carter's mouth lifted. "Is she now?"

Royce dropped the corner of the canvas drape. "I could give Mr. Carter a closer tour of the vessel, so he can judge for himself the quality of the carpentry."

Jackson Carter's cool eyes studied her from beneath lowered lashes. "I've every faith that Miss McCall is being completely honest with me."

Guilt niggled at the back of Megan's throat. "Actually, there is something we need discuss. Regarding the launch that's due a week from today -- "

Something shifted in the pale eyes half hidden by a fringe of tawny lashes; and Carter held up a silencing hand. "Regretfully, business matters in your more northern colonies demand my immediate attention. Since the terms of our contract stipulate that I must be present at the launch of Mme. du Lac's ship, you'll have to ah, hold its launching until I return. Hopefully, the delay causes you no further difficulty."

"Cause me no difficulty," Megan sputtered. "Mr. Carter, you are not a blind man. You had to have noticed the state of your employer's ship."

"I assure you, Miss McCall, I am every bit as loyal to my employer as your representative is to you."

Surprise slammed like a changing tide against the suspicion battling inside Megan. Had the words Royce Devlin spoken on the pier in tones too low to carry through her office window been an argument for her case?

Or was this simply a ploy, a clever tactic devised by two men who shared a past? Did they practice a new form of piracy on her, one that tacked a fine line around any law? Ruin the sale with the reputable buyer, if Desiré du Lac even existed, then come seemingly to the crippled widow's rescue with a pittance of an offer. Just enough to stave off bankruptcy. Just enough for a pair of pirates to get their hands on her fleet sooner.

But, if that was the plan, Jackson Carter had only to demand she meet the already set deadline.

On the dock in front of the warehouse, Carter informed her of when she should next expect him, adding, "I look forward to viewing a flawlessly, successful launch."

The inflection in his voice warned Megan that there would be no more extensions, that a launch was precisely what he expected when he next visited.

"And a perfect launch you shall have," she returned, still searching for the trickery, the conspiracy in what went unsaid.

Jackson Carter mounted his horse and rode off. Megan turned toward the warehouse. Royce opened the door before her.

He hadn't touched her. He hadn't tried. She was afraid he would, that he'd gather her into his arms and make her forget the questions and the doubts.

Even more, she was afraid he wouldn't.

Quickly, Megan stepped over the threshold. She needed to think. She needed to be free of distraction. She needed to distance herself from Royce Devlin's carnal allure until she could sort everything out.

He shut the door behind them. Her stomach floated as though she rode the deck of a ship that had just dropped off a high sea. The trouble was, sometimes a ship didn't ride gently through the trough between waves. Sometimes, a ship bellied out hard.

She gripped the banister and lifted her foot to the first step. Royce's arm shot out in front of her, barring her from rising another step...unless she was willing to touch him.

She stared at the obstacle she dared not touch long enough to cast it aside, her heart hammering like a slaver's drum, her throat dry as dust. "What mischief have you and Mr. Carter cooked up?"

"No mischief."

She looked into the face hovering too near her own. "What? No denial that you two know each other?"

"No denial."

"I don't suppose you'd tell me how you two know each other?"

A shadow passed over the rusty eyes. "It's an old friendship, Princess. Leave it at that."

Tears scratched at the backs of her eyes. She turned her face aside. "In other words, trust you?"

"You might give it a try."

"I can't."

"Not yet. I know."

Tears seeped into the corners of her eyes. "I may never."

"I know."

She looked into his eyes, saw their concern and their earnestness. Truth or trick?

She stroked his cheek with her fingertips, the stubble of his beard smooth in one direction and prickly in the other. Mutual trust was like the former, comforting. One sided trust was like the latter, piercing. She knew. She'd grown up with one and suffered the other.

A tear slipped down her cheek. "I wish I could."

"I know."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

By day, the shipyard crews, black and white, rebuilt a ship and the wood cutting crew cut trees. By night, each man took his turn guarding yard and mill against further mishap. But Megan relaxed the guard on her heart.

Each day Royce toiled to rebuild her ship, each night he returned to her arms, each morning he woke beside her, her resolve slipped. He knew which caresses flamed passion in her. He knew how much weight to lend the touch of his hand, his mouth, his tongue when coaxing ecstasy through her.

He knew what she yearned for in her heart.

He'd said so, weeks ago when Jackson Carter had last visited the shipyard. When she'd said she couldn't trust him, might never trust him, yet wished she could, Royce had said he knew. She no longer doubted that he did.

"Princess?" His voice was like a mid-summer's night, hot and heavy. "You're awfully quiet for a shipbuilder whose first ship will be launched today."

Though he spoke in low tones, his words slid over the clatter of hooves against cobblestones and chatter of an awakening market place. She looked at Royce, his russet mane against the black hood of the phaeton like a sunrise driving off the dark of night.

"I didn't sleep well last night," she said.

"I know."

"How?" she demanded, curious how a man could know so much about her when she'd told him so little.

He hitched a rusty eyebrow at her, his mouth slanting a lustful line. "Do you forget, Princess, which man's body nestles yours through the night?"

She blushed at the reminder of their intimacy. But, while her cheeks burned, the old doubt twisted through her heart. Did he distract her with passion while he plotted treachery?

Her fingers fidgeted in her lap. He covered both her hands with one of his and his expression smoothed.

"The ship's been well guarded," he said.

She wanted to trust in the certainty of his words. She wanted to believe in the protection of the hand covering hers. She wanted to surrender to the earnestness in the rusty eyes.

But the only other man she'd ever opened herself to, trusted, and believed had been Peter Tallmadge. Her heart cinched in her chest. "Should one drop of blood be shed during its launch -- "

Royce's hand tightened over hers in a gentle, reassuring squeeze. "No blood will be shed in your yard today."

"You don't know that. You can't know."

"But I can have faith."

Faith? Is that what she lacked? Was lack of faith why apprehension clutched at her throat and dread rooted deep in her belly, why she yet held her heart back from Royce Devlin?

They rounded a corner, the carriage swaying her shoulder nearer his. He stroked his thumb across the bare skin between the top of her leather glove and the cuff of her dress. "Have faith, Princess. You know how. You didn't survive a butcher's knife and build a ship without it."

"Desperation made me fight to keep my legs," she argued.

"You kept your legs because you believed you could heal, that you would walk again. That's faith."

"I had to survive. People were dependent upon me."

"Yet you risked everything to build a ship on speculation."

"And well I know your feelings on that subject," she said with a huff and tried to yank her hands out from under his.

"The point is," he said, the weight of his hand holding hers trapped in her lap, "you had faith enough in your design to build the ship before you had a buyer. You had faith in the help of those gambling their futures on your succeeding. Faith that a buyer would come along. Trust in that faith again, Princess."

"You mean, trust you."

His thumb strummed the back of her wrist. "You already have on a few occasions."

"When?" she demanded.

"When you let me carry you into the river to exercise your legs."

"If you recall, I had a guard."

"Only in the beginning and most often an old man who wouldn't have swatted the life from a fly let alone shoot a man."

"You didn't know that then."

"I knew, Princess."

She considered for a moment what he implied before continuing her interrogation. "When else?"

"When I found you weeping beneath the falls."

"Tears of joy," she protested. "I'd just sold my ship."

"Tears of loneliness, of emptiness. I knew. I've had successes and no one with whom to share them."

She turned her face aside, embarrassed by how she'd treated him, and murmured, "I wasn't very trusting the morning after."

"But you were at the moment you needed my comforting." He traced the open edge of her glove with his thumb. "Even in the beginning, when I was your legs, you trusted me not to drop you."

She gave him a sheepish smile. "Out of desperation."

His thumb slid under her glove and across the back of her hand. "Each time you allow me to lie between your legs -- "

Memories evoked by his words and sensations aroused by his circling thumb blanched across her nerve endings.

" -- each time you accept my body into yours -- "

An unnamed desire spasmed deep in her belly.

" -- you trust me not to hurt you."

She fought the light-headedness caused by her scattering blood, caused by what she thought was no more than an innate craving of one body for another. In a rush, she countered, "I trust in the pleasure you're most adept at providing."

His thumb stilled against the back of her hand. "It's a start, Princess. You just keep remembering all the little ways you have trusted me, are able to trust me. It's a start."

She probed the rusty eyes gazing back her. They seemed to hide nothing. They seemed full with the promise of an honest man. She wanted to believe in that promise. A little faith, that's all he asked.

Gray Girl, well acquainted with her daily route, pulled up on her own in front of the McCall Shipbuilding yard. Royce's chin swung toward the beach where her schooner awaited launching and his ruddy face went white. A glance at her ship and Megan saw the red stain vivid against the ship's hull.

Megan's strangled cry jolted Royce into action. He vaulted from the phaeton and lifted her down. She sagged against him. "Is it blood?"

"I don't know," he answered numbly when he wanted to howl his outrage. He'd just asked Megan for her faith. He'd seen her features softening, seen the suggestion of yielding.

Worse, she'd worked too long and too hard to come to this end.

"Whose?" The word cracked from her throat.

He could only shake his head.

"Why?" she wailed.

"Who, is the more apt question at the moment," Royce growled, trudging off toward the shadow shifting among the far supports of the two man saw.

Royce grabbed Dunn by one hunched shoulder and spun him back against an upright. "What happened here?"

Dunn curled his lip. "You got eyes, Devlin. See for yourself. Or is your outrage an act for your lover's sake?"

Royce bunched the front of Dunn's shirt in his fists. "You and your crew were supposed to guard this ship!"

Megan clutched Royce's elbow. "Let him go."

"Not until he gives me a straight answer."

"Look at him," she pleaded. "He's ill."

The eyes glaring back at Royce were dull, and a gray pallor shown through Dunn's dark complexion. Royce loosened his grip.

"Is-is everyone all right?" Megan asked.

The obsidian eyes hardened at their mistress. "We're all alive, if that's what you mean."

Royce's fingers flexed, jerking the collar against the back of Dunn's neck. "What happened to the men who were supposed to be guarding her?"

As though in answer, the warehouse door banged open. A sawyer bolted across the pier, fell to his knees, and vomited over the side.

"Most of us have already emptied our stomachs and bowels." Dunn spoke in a tone keen as a dagger's edge. "Most of us met the day with our aching heads pressed to the cool sand beneath the pier."

The vague outlines of a dozen or so men, black and white alike, stirred among the shadows cast by planks and pilings. One man staggered into the daylight, took a look at the cast iron kettle hanging over dead embers a few feet from the dock, and doubled over.

"Toombs." The name hissed from Royce like a curse.

"You're quick with the name of a man not here to defend himself, Devlin."

Royce eyed Dunn. "Are you defending Jubal Toombs?"

Several of the building crew lumbered nearer. Dunn's white teeth shown like a scar between his black lips as he spoke.

"You've been heard saying that even a lazy man can be coaxed into action by the right motivation. I say Toombs could have been motivated by a man who's made himself a place between a land rich widow's thighs."

Royce swung his free fist at Dunn's jaw. Dunn blocked the blow, staggering Royce backward. Murmurs of surprise punctuated by a few indignant shouts rippled over the men forming a loose ring around Dunn and Royce, who were now circling each other, fists raised and eyes gleaming.

"Dunn, please don't," Megan wailed.

For a fleeting moment, Royce thought she was trying to protect him from Dunn's ham-sized fists. Then she finished.

"They'll punish you as a slave."

The oddness of Megan's warning shuddered through Royce like the after-shock of an upper-cut. He glanced at her, his fists dropping from in front of his face. "Punish him as a slave?"

Dunn took advantage of the distraction to land a jaw-jarring blow.

Royce spun and hit the ground hard. He levered himself up onto his elbows and shook his head. The yard, the pier, the bay, and the faces of all the men watching swam before him. He rolled onto his knees. Amidst the noise roaring in his ears, one female pitched voice echoed above the rest. "Stay down!"

Megan's face cleared before him, etched with worry. But worry for whom?

"Why?" he growled and climbed to his feet. "So your Dunn won't be punished as a slave?"

He refused to be persuaded by the stricken look on her face, refused to be diverted by her reaching hands as he strode past her. He stopped just within arm's reach of Dunn and balled his fists in front of his face. "You want to try that again, this time with me paying attention?"

Dunn smiled. But the glimmer in his black eyes was lethal. He swung.

Royce ducked, the force of the unconnected shot driving Dunn's arm in a tight arc over Royce's head that lifted the hair at Royce's crown. Royce cut a fist up at Dunn's chin, landing a solid jab. The black giant barely flinched. And the black backhand that caught Royce alongside the head reeled him back against one of the saw supports.

For one stunned moment, he struggled to draw the air back into his lungs before the giant coming at him like an armed galleon under full sale reached him. Megan lunged between them, facing him. "Don't fight back!"

But Royce could think only of why she tried to stop his fight with her Master Shipwright. Without Dunn, her new crew wouldn't be trained. Without Dunn, her ships wouldn't be built. Without Dunn, her dreams, her hopes, her goals would be thwarted; and Royce had already been a pawn for a woman whose wants came at the cost of any man who loved her.

"Get out of my way," he snarled, dragging air into his lungs.

But she only wheeled toward Dunn, crying out, "I'm the one you're angry with. I'm the one you want to fight. Not him!"

What was the little fool doing? Dunn could snap her in half without batting an eyelash. Had he been wrong to think she protected the other man?

Dunn brushed Megan aside. She lunged at the arm he drew back in readiness. His cocked elbow caught her in the shoulder, sending her sprawling into the sand.

At the sight of Megan being mishandled, the confusion cooled rage coursing Royce's veins reared like a well-trained war horse. Instinct took over.

Royce threw himself at Dunn, his shoulder plowing into the belly of the bigger man. Dunn went down. But he took Royce with him. They rolled, the proximity of each man to the other preventing the killing blows both were capable of. But, by right of sheer size, Dunn should have had the upper hand. Yet, it was Royce who ended up on top, Royce who was raining blows on Dunn's head and shoulders by the time Megan righted herself and shouted for them to be separated.

John Seaton peeled Royce off of Dunn. It took Otis and another slave to hold Dunn back as he bounded to his feet.

With Matthew Bradley's help, Megan rose. She took her time brushing the sand from her skirt. Judging by the blades, hooks, and clubs that had appeared in hands black and white, every man in the yard needed the time to cool down.

Besides, she'd seen the hurt in Royce's rusty eyes even as rage had twisted across his mouth. He thought she'd betrayed him. She was in no hurry to face the accusation.

She faced Dunn. "Royce is right about the lacing of the stew being Toombs' method of entertainment and revenge."

As easy as a dog shaking of water, Dunn shed the two men holding him and loomed over Megan. "And if your bondsman denies being the force behind Toombs, which of us shall you believe? The man your father raised like a son? Or the one who climbs like a stag in rut between your legs every night?"

Megan blanched. Royce lunged. Seaton braced him back. Fists, dark and light alike, tightened on the improvised weapons.

Megan flattened her hands at the men ringing them. "We're all on edge. We're all angry and tired."

She looked into each ashen face. "You've been made ill by a treacherous hand. Each of you. Black and white alike. If you let the blackguard who's done this to you divide us against ourselves, then he wins. Do you understand?"

Wary glances were cast between men uncertain whom they could trust, but their grips on their weapons eased.

Dunn lifted his face toward the darker men, his voice like thunder. "There was a blood clause to the contract of sale on this ship, a clause stating that should one drop of blood be shed in her launching, the sale will be nullified. If we believe Toombs is behind this latest destruction, who are we to believe informed him of the contract's blood clause?"

Over the rumbles of dissent rippling through the men flanking her Master Shipwright, Megan argued, "That a ship launched in blood is unlucky is a common superstition."

"But this ship has not yet been launched," countered Dunn, "and the size of that stain suggests whoever put it there wanted its fact widely known. Who besides you, me, the buyer, and her representative knew of the clause."

"I did," Royce volunteered before Megan could speak.

"And Peyton Lyttle," she added quickly, looking into Royce's face for the first time since his pain-filled, indicting glare.

This time, he inclined his head toward her in silent thanks, though tension yet etched his features.

"Not that Peyton would have told anyone," she continued only to see the lines at the outer corners of the rust hued eyes deepen, "had I told him the contents of the contract were confidential, which I didn't."

"You shouldn't have had to," Royce returned, his tone icy.

"If he mentioned it to Cousin Cornelia," Megan explained, "it's ancient gossip by now. Anyone might know of the clause."

"Or -- " Dunn's deep voice rolled through the yard, " -- the word might have been put to Toombs' ear by lips that know well how to whisper sweet lies into tender ears."

Royce jerked free of John Seaton and squared himself before Dunn. "Did I lie when I warned you myself of Toombs lacing your food with a purgative?"

Dunn's chin cut the air between them.

Royce peered past Dunn at the men who'd rallied behind him. "Is there a black man among you didn't see me close my hands on Toombs' throat the day he last tampered with your stew?"

Murmurs of agreement coursed through the darker workers and the readiness eased from their arms.

Dunn growled and took a step toward Royce. Megan placed a restraining hand on his forearm. "If you had seen the look on his face when we first pulled into the yard this morning, you would know he works with and not against us."

The muscles beneath her fingers bunched. "Dunn," she reasoned, "has any man other than yourself labored harder than he to restore this, our ship?"

"A ship, I remind you, that is a pearl to a pirate's eye."

"Would a pirate burn the prize he covets?"

Dunn glanced down at her, the tension in his forearm popping and skittering beneath her hand.

Megan lifted her face close to Dunn's. "Like a brother who sees his little sister make a mistake, you are disappointed in me. You are angry because you think I have been fooled by a pirate's promise."

Dunn's muscles tightened against her restraining touch.

"What I believe are a man's actions," she reasoned. "Royce Devlin almost died saving my mill from the fire. You witnessed the act yourself."

Dunn's eyes glittered at her like polished obsidian and his voice came out as though dragged across a rasp. "You play with fire, Little Meg."

"But this time, if anyone is burned, it will be only me."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

"It's paint, not blood," Dunn reported, rubbing the red stain from his fingers with sand.

Royce firmed his grip on Megan's upper arms as she sagged back against him in relief. He wanted to gather her up and carry her off to the little bed in the corner room of the loft office where he could make her forget all the troubles befalling her. He wanted to kiss and caress her until she forgot she yet doubted him.

If anyone is burned, it will be only me.

Her lack of faith in him tore at his heart. His inability to change what he could not control ravaged his soul. Even if he won her heart, unless he earned her trust also, he would only hurt her in the end.

And Dunn, who'd bartered his neck and his family's future to save the legs of his Little Meg, would break him in half for breaking her heart. It would be no more than he'd deserve.

"Nothing to hide," he murmured against her temple.

"As if I could keep secret a stained hull had I a mind to," Megan muttered, her face tilting toward the curious throngs clotting the road and beach.

He rubbed his palms up and down her arms. "We'll scrub her clean before Jackson arrives. He might never learn of it."

But, they'd barely begun when Jackson Carter rode up. Jaw set, eyes icy, he strode across the beach toward the ship. Royce intercepted him. Jackson flashed a restraining hand at him.

"I've heard all about it," he snapped, gazing up at the stained hull. "Over breakfast, what of it I could eat given such conversation!"

"It's not -- "

"Blood?" Jackson reeled toward Royce. "Most of the gossips proclaim it to be. Blood enough, say they, to have taken a minor herd of cows to supply it. That, even as we speak, their carcasses lay rotting. Why, half the town is running about with rags pressed to their noses, smothering the stench!"

"That's absurd!"

Jackson put his face close to Royce's, his voice low. "So is the quantity and type of mishap which has befallen the building of this ship."

"Jackson, please, just hear me out."

His old friend surveyed him through narrowed eyes. "The less expansive of the tale- tellers speak of a stain of paint. Give me your word it is so."

"It's paint. You've my word on it."

Carter snorted, shrugged out of his jacked, tossed it over one of the sawhorses in the saw pit, and pushed up his sleeves. "Give me a bucket and a scrub brush."

***

Megan rubbed the edge of one of the stays that had cradled her ship all the months of its being built. Royce may not have been part of her life the day they'd laid the keel, but he'd guided her through her first step after months of immobility, a step she'd thought she'd never take, a step that would not have been without him. For that alone, she could have loved Royce Devlin.

"Enough inspecting, Princess." Royce's voice was low and reassuring, inviting. "We've each checked it twice, John Seaton, Dunn, and I. You three times."

"Then faith is well protected this day," she said over her shoulder to the man whose nearness warmed her back.

He plucked her fingers from the waxed glides that would deliver The Lady of the Lake into the sea for which she was destined. He held her fingers to his lips, his breath warm across her knuckles and sweet against her cheek.

"Megan." He whispered her name. "My princess." The endearment stirred the strands of hair that had come loose above her ear. "If you ever believe one thing of me, let it be that I would never intentionally harm you."

She leaned back against his shoulder and peered up into his face. He looked somber, his eyes barely visible beneath their lowered lashes. "Such an odd request from a man whose word persuaded Jackson Carter against nullifying the sale of my ship today."

His eyes widened, his lashes like copper threads catching the late afternoon sunlight. "You heard Jackson and me talking?"

"Did you think I'd not notice the arrival of my buyer's emissary, especially when he stormed my yard like a mad bull? Did you think I would not pause in my scrubbing and listen? Did you think the two of you so quiet as to go unheard by any man or woman with a keen ear?"

Royce shook his head. "You looked rather stern when I glanced up and saw you watching us from your scaffold."

"You looked...anxious."

"I was afraid you'd fall, you stood so near the edge of the plank."

"That you care so for me -- " the words caught in Megan's throat, giving her time to consider what had almost slipped out, that for this too she could love him. Glancing at the ground, she ended with, "It means a great deal to me."

"And well it should. I care in earnest."

The whisper of his words lingered in the strands of hair settling against the back of her ear. She peered up at him. He smiled down on her, though a sadness stole among the rusty splinters of his eyes.

She opened her mouth to ask what dragged at his heart on a day that promised so bright an end as a successfully launched ship. But Dunn appeared at their elbows, demanding, "Do we launch her by light of day or dark of night?"

Megan eyed the long handled, wooden mallet slung across Dunn's hands and the protective gleam in his eyes. She couldn't stop herself from smiling. "I think you are as eager to strike the edge from your temper as you are the wedges holding back our Lady's keel from sea?"

Dunn snorted and cast a dark glower at Royce. Royce drew her away from the hull.

"She'll slide easily." His words sounded sure. His tone didn't. "The stays are well greased."

"So my inspection informs me," she agreed, letting him hand her up onto the pier.

Hopping up beside her, he guided her out along the pier. "You'll be able to see the launch better from up here."

"You mean, more safely."

He glanced at her. "Worry not, Princess. She'll not flounder. She'll not go to ground."

"I expect she won't. I have faith."

This time, when he glanced at her, she trapped the rusty gaze, held it captive by sheer determination. From the yard below lifted the final warning before the final blow to the final wedge holding her ship from the sea. Then the crack of mallet to wood wedge splintered the otherwise silent yard.

For all her newfound faith, Megan held her breath as The Lady wobbled and lurched like a newborn filly finding her legs. Then she sliced clean as a well-honed blade into the water, rose imperiously atop the waves, and bobbed spiritedly.

The men who'd built her, the man who'd purchased her on behalf of a mysterious lady, and those who'd gossiped and gathered to see what further would befall the ship with the too-slim bow cheered. Only Megan found her throat too clogged with emotion to utter a sound.

Royce's fingers squeezed around her hand. "Shall I order the first keg broached?"

She nodded, her gaze fastened on The Lady as she balked at the ropes mooring her to the dock. She'd be a proud beauty once tamed by mast and sail.

Royce returned with two pewter tankards of ale. He handed her one. "Will you make the first toast?"

She nodded and they strode arm in arm toward where the pier was anchored to the land. Megan surveyed the pandemonium of men scrambling to fill their cups. "I see the size of my building crew has swelled ten fold."

"It's customary for the builder of a newly launched ship to share the celebration of it with his or her neighbors."

She gave Royce a crooked smile. "I'm well acquainted with the custom, Mr. Devlin. It's just that, during all the months I struggled, I hadn't noticed I had so many neighbors."

"You've more friends along the waterfront than you think."

"Anyone serving up free ale along the waterfront has a bounty of friends."

"True enough. But don't hold their fondness for gossip too much against them, Princess. There's many a small builder among them happy to see one of their own thrive."

"So, now that I've succeeded, they count me among one of their own?"

"Against all odds, you have built a ship with integrity and an envious craftsmanship. Even if they had doubts, even if they still have doubts, you're one of theirs now."

He stopped them at the edge of the pier in front of the warehouse. "The moment is yours, Princess."

He eased from her side. She glanced after him. He gave her a reassuring nod and she faced the crowd of doubters turned revelers. The time for healing had come.

She tapped her cane, silencing the mob. When all eyes were upon her, she raised her tankard above her head. "May there not be a man among you who goes thirsty tonight."

A general whoop of agreement coursed through the crowd.

"May there not be man nor woman among you who'll lack for success as this season ends. May every last one of you celebrate my first launch with a glad heart."

From amidst the crush, John Seaton thrust a tankard high in the air, the first free man to have sought her out, the first to toast her in return. "And may she be but the first of many."

A roar of approval erupted from the yard and a sea of battered cups lifted at Megan. At least for one afternoon, her critics would praise her. At least for a half a day, her fellow shipbuilders would rank her among their number.

And for only a few hours more, she would hold back from Royce Devlin the key to her heart. Tonight, when she lay in his arms, she would confess that she loved him.

***

But, as the shadows grew long, the congratulating hands grew heavy, and the ale kegs grew light, Megan found herself impatient to share her discovery. Locating Royce among the throng, she threaded her fingers through his and led him out along the pier. There, the sounds of celebrating were only echoes across the water.

Yet, when she turned and faced Royce alongside where The Lady slipped against her moorings on the ebbing tide, Megan discovered that her tongue was as shy as if they yet stood elbow to elbow with the worst gossips. Was what niggled her the prospect of gossiping tongues? Was it shame that she took to her bed a man to whom was not married?

Royce lifted her fingers to his lips and blew his warm breath across them. "You look pensive, Princess. What troubles you?"

She measured the warmth Royce's breath and flesh lent her fingers against the chill of the head of her cane within the clutch of the others. Fear of gossip hadn't prevented her from riding Cinnabar astride nor building a ship against all odds. Fear of no sort could make her choose the chilly cane over Royce's warm flesh.

Still, when The Lady bucked against the restraint of her moorings beside them, Megan muttered, "She's unwieldy without cargo or ballast in her belly."

Royce shifted closer, his chest touching her shoulder, his lips near her ear. "Which will soon be remedied."

Behind him, where the dock met the land, the celebrating masses mulled. They had to see that she and Royce stood intimately close. They must have witnessed his tender escort of her from hull to pier. There had to be some among them who'd been present when Dunn had accused her of being blinded by lust. What passed between her and Royce was no longer secret.

Yet, the words she'd thought she was ready to speak stuck in her throat and those that came out were inconsequential. "Tomorrow the carpenters will start on the cabins below decks, adding the bunks and laying the woodwork."

"And shortly after, the sail makers will deliver the canvass and the rope makers their ropes," Royce finished with a sigh that hinted of impatience. "Why did you bring me out here?"

Still, the words she had in her heart wouldn't leave her throat. She tipped her face away from the man whose hair backlit by the sinking sun burned like fire and toward the ship gilded by the golden rays. "The Lady of the Lake," she murmured. "Such an imperious name for so spirited and sleek a ship, not to mention one who's not at all destined for lake sailing."

Though he drew her no deeper into his embrace, Megan felt Royce's heat engulf her, felt the tension of him holding himself at bay as sure as she felt the breath of the words he spoke against her ear. "She's more like a princess, beautiful, trim. A hope upon which futures are built."

She peered up into the rusty eyes shaded from the light by his inclined head. His lips parted. "You didn't bring me out here to talk about a ship's name I can't change nor her imminent rigging, Princess. What's this all about?"

From the yard and pier in front of the warehouse, sounds and shadows reached like unwanted intruders. Suddenly, she became desperate to hold back the rest of the world, to close herself off in the sensations of their own bodies. A kiss would blot out the rest. A kiss would make her remember everything Royce Devlin meant to her. A kiss would free her tongue to speak the words she longed to say.

Megan slid her fingers from between his and spread her hand against his chest. She raised herself on her toes. She tilted her mouth toward Royce's. Their lips were a feather stroke apart when the clop of shod hooves against pier planks echoed in her ears.

Over Royce's shoulder, she saw a pair of draft horses drawing a flatbed wagon out onto the pier. They continued past the warehouse, intruding on a moment already too fragile. Like bees to honey, the boisterous crowd swarmed the wagon, drawing curses from the driver as he guided the team around so the wagon faced the schooner when they stopped. Megan sank back on her heels, her hand against Royce's chest her only physical link yet to him. A well-oiled Jackson Carter hooted and waved for them to join him at the rear of wagon. Megan dropped her hand to her side. Royce snagged her by the elbow.

"Princess?" There was more question in the endearment than Megan wanted to answer at the moment. She moved past Royce toward Jackson Carter, toward the wagon. Royce trailed her, his hand on her arm a tenuous link.

The crowd parted between them and Jackson. He sidestepped, making room for Megan and clapped Royce on the shoulder. "What do you think of our Desiré?"

Megan stared at the carved figurehead of a woman lying on the flatbed of the wagon, her ivory painted flesh mounding provocatively above the edge of a blue painted, formfitting drape. Desiré du Lac?

Jackson chuckled. "Right full of herself, the old girl is, to have a figurehead made in her own likeness."

The drape of the cloth and flow of the hair had been carved with an exquisiteness that made it appear as though they blew in the wind even as the figurehead lay awkwardly on its side in the box of the wagon. If Megan had learned one thing of the enigmatic Mme. du Lac, it was that she demanded the highest quality, whether from shipbuilder, cabinetmaker, or wood carver.

The auburn hair framed a face of classic beauty, caressed a long, slender neck and milky shoulders, and curled provocatively toward her full breasts. Our Desiré.

"Mighty grand for so moderate a size ship," puckered one onlooker.

"Right handsome wench," belched out an unsteady bystander.

"Handsome, hell," murmured an awed voice. "That there's the most beautiful woman I've ever laid me eyes on."

"And yer eyes are all you is gonna lay on that one," chortled another, followed by a chorus of guffaws.

Megan's gaze traveled the length of the figurehead's, of Desiré du Lac's gracefully reaching arms. They came together over her head where carved hands held a cross whose bars were intersected by a ring. Committing to memory the symbols etched within the four sections of the circle, Megan asked, "Why does a French woman hold a Celtic cross?"

Jackson laughed and swayed and hung on Royce. "You could call it a nuptial concession, wouldn't you say, Royce?"

"Enough," Royce thundered, releasing Megan's arm and drawing Jackson away from the wagon. "He's had enough to drink."

***

Megan stood at the foot of the bed where Royce slept, a bed they shared. She hadn't confessed her love to him.

He jerked his head to one side. Moonlight sliced his puckering brow. A strangled groan caught in his throat. What haunted him, she wondered? Was it the same thing that had chased her from his side once he'd fallen asleep?

Megan snatched up her cane and negligee and slipped from the bedchamber and down the stairs. In the rear Entry Hall she paused long enough to light a taper before entering the library. She swept the light along the spines of the books lining the shelves, her eyes scanning for the volume she sought. Her hand paused and the flame shuddered upon the ornate lettering of one title.

She didn't have to continue. She could snuff her candle and return to her bed, to Royce's side. She didn't have to take that book from the shelf. She needn't open its pages and search out the evidence confirming what she feared.

She slid the volume of heraldry from between the others and opened it across the writing table. With trembling fingers, she sifted through the pages until she was one thin sheet away from the name she sought.

Megan drew a deep breath and turned the page. Irish heraldry was full of Celtic Crosses, but only one colorfully depicted the same family crest as had been carved within the ring intersecting the roman cross Desiré du Lac's figurehead had held. It was the family crest of the Irish Devlins.

Another woman who refuses to use her husband's name. Royce had once uttered those words. For all the truths he had told her through the months they had grown together, there had been one he had not divulged. In that moment, Megan learned that a lie by omission was no less painful than a falsehood told.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Sunlight, warm as Megan's breath, slid across Royce's cheek. He smiled, a low rumble of contentment vibrating in his throat. He stretched between the sheets rumpled by their lovemaking and reached for her. But the mattress beside him was empty.

Royce's eyes popped open. He levered himself up onto his elbows and squinted through the sunlight. The gown she'd worn for the launch lay on the daybed where it had landed after he'd peeled it from her shoulders and down past her hips last night. The reminder of their hot, eager sex made him want to sink back into the groove their joined bodies had left in the mattress and inhale the scent of love.

Love. He'd felt love in her every caress. He'd heard love in her every sound. He'd tasted it in her kisses. She had only to say the words. She nearly had at the end of the pier when she'd raised herself onto her toes and lifted her mouth toward his. He'd seen the relenting in her eyes.

Then Desiré's damnable figurehead had arrived and drew Megan's attention away from him. And Jackson had nearly blurted out more than Royce thought Megan ready to hear. Her hand had grown cold within the clasp of his fingers, warning him he must have her trust before he confessed his connection to Desiré. She'd suspect his motives if she didn't.

But he'd had to usher Jackson out of range of Megan's hearing, when he'd needed to stay at her side, reading the nuances of her body, reassuring her with the presence of his. In front of a yard full of colleagues was no place for her to learn what he was to the woman who'd bought her ship.

When she'd drawn him aside and asked that he drive her home, he'd prepared himself to reveal certain truths once sequestered within the phaeton hood. But, she'd snuggled against him and he'd decided to wait until they'd reached the intimacy of her private rooms to explain what he was to the woman who'd had a figurehead carved in her likeness.

But, once in her bedchamber, Megan didn't stop to light any candles. She'd turned to him and brushed her lips across his, teasing him with her tongue. She'd tugged his shirttails free, spread her hands beneath the cloth, splayed her fingers across his naked flanks, and peeled the clothing from him. She'd pressed him to the mattress, then ridden him with a fearless abandon.

And he'd forgotten what he'd intended to confess. He'd known only that she'd surrendered something to him and that they had all night to explore the joy of their bodies. He'd thought only how they had the rest of their lives to love each other.

Eager for Megan's company, eager for the languid look of love in a pair of sea-blue eyes, he flung back the bedclothes, tugged on his breeches, grabbed his shirt, and bolted down the stairs. The library door stood open. He strode across the threshold, intent on the butler's pantry door in the far corner, the shortest passage to the kitchen where she'd likely be.

Like sea foam afloat a cobalt sea, her lacy night rail against the backdrop of blue drapes caught Royce's eye. He drew up short, spun on his heel toward the writing table, and grinned. "There you are."

She sat stock still in the chair on the far side of the table, her face pale as her gown. Like the first time he'd faced her, her eyes seemed to be her only coloring. He didn't like the warning in that comparison. His good mood slipped.

"Megan?"

She didn't answer. She didn't smile. She just stared at him through eyes desolate as a sea gone dead.

Apprehension skittered up his spine. He moved across the room, stopping in front of the writing table. His mouth dried, his words sticking in his throat. "What's wrong?"

Her gaze flicked at his bare chest. "Put your shirt on."

He didn't question. He didn't delay. He dropped the shirt over his head and shrugged it down past his shoulders and flanks. She was staring up at him again. This time, this close, he could see the pain glinting in her eyes like sunlight off ship's wake.

"What's happened?" he asked.

Her hand moved atop the table. He glanced down and recognized the papers she shoved towards him.

"Your contract," she said, as though needing to explain.

He stared at the document beneath her pale hand. "What about it?"

"I've signed it over to you. You're a free man."

As much as he sought freedom from a wrongful verdict, from a wrongful sentence, that Megan handed him that freedom raised the hairs at the back of Royce's neck. Suddenly, the thoroughness of last night's lovemaking took on new meaning. She hadn't been opening her heart to him. She'd been saying goodbye.

He leaned toward her, one hand bracing the tabletop, the other reaching for her chin. "And as a free man, I choose to stay here, with you."

She turned her face before he made contact. For a moment, his fingers shaped the air where her chin had been. Then Royce curled them back into his palm and dropped his hand to the surface of the table. "If my leaving isn't what troubles you, what does?"

She drew a large book from the side of the table and slid it around facing him. With the same fingers she'd last night traced his throbbing flesh, she flipped the book open to the pages marked by a strip of leather.

Royce stared down at the family crest of the Devlins, at the emblem Desiré's carved hands had held for all to see.

"Yours?" she asked in a steady voice though her eyes were huge beneath their unshed tears.

Issuing a low curse, he nodded.

"Desiré du Lac is another woman who refuses to use her husband's name, isn't she?"

Again, Royce nodded.

A pain far worse than any inflicted by broken limbs and ravaged muscles spasmed through Megan. She bit back the pain as she'd learned to do. She suffered her weakness in silence as she'd been taught by a husband's betrayal. And she dug courage up from beneath the rubble of her shattered heart and bolstered herself against the regret bracketing Royce Devlin's rusty eyes. "I give you your freedom before Desiré takes it."

He straightened, shaking his head. "She'll never buy my freedom from you."

Anger reared like a phoenix from the ashes of Megan's despair, anger that Royce Devlin would be so bold as to flaunt the facts in her face. "Did she think I'd take one look at that figurehead of her likeness bearing your coat of arms and just give you up to her, a bonus for having bought my untried ship?"

"It would better suit Desiré if I had to beg for her help," he growled, his fists clenching at his sides.

Megan surveyed Royce's suddenly defensive posture. She searched his rusty eyes for a pirate's deceit as she probed, "The lady extracts an exacting punishment for failure, does she?"

"What do you know of my failing Desiré?" he demanded, the color rising in his cheeks.

It wasn't the reaction she'd expected. She'd expected him to maintain his indignation, giving her more time to search out the falseness of his act. "You got caught with pirated goods in the hold of your ship," she pressed, determined to force him into admitting the full extent of the partnership between him and the woman who'd bought her ship. "You got sentenced to prison and bartered into indentureship."

He said nothing. But the slope of his shoulders eased and the jutting line of his jaw receded. However he'd failed Desiré du Lac, it wasn't by being caught in his piracy.

Megan leaned over the desk toward Royce. "Did not Desiré applaud your cunning at selling your services to a woman who owns both a plantation and shipyard?"

The color that had moments ago bled up Royce's throat now drained from his face. He grabbed the edge of the desk opposite her. "I never plann -- "

"Or is it your opportunism with which she finds fault?"

His fingers flattened against the surface of the table. Desolation etched his features. "Is that what you think, Princess? That I plotted against you?"

She wished she could believe the dismay ripping through his eyes like flaking rust. But she dared not forget what he was, a pirate with a gentleman's skill at lying.

"If you weren't plotting against me, why didn't you tell me you knew her when you learned she'd bought my ship?"

He closed his eyes. And Megan knew, however he had failed Desiré du Lac, he was about to disillusion her worse.

"When Jackson Carter showed up at the shipyard for the first time," he said, "you had no trust for me."

"And you'd not yet managed to get between my thighs," she shot back.

His eyelids popped open, and he pounded his fist against the table top. "What happened under the falls was not planned!"

"Says you."

He drew a deep breath. "If I'd told you then what I'd done, you'd have thought exactly what you do now."

"And what precisely is it that you did?"

Royce's fingers uncurled against the wood surface either side of the book of heraldry. The unbound mane she'd last night run her fingers through shuddered over his shoulders. "I wrote to Desiré about your ship."

"You're right," she leveled icily back at him. "Had I known, you would never have gotten into my bed."

He reared back. "Damn it, Megan! I wasn't after you!"

"You were after my ship."

"No." His voice sounded as rusty as a long unused hinge.

Megan hardened herself. "You knew why I built that schooner. You knew I was loathe for it to fall into the hands of a pirate."

"I'm no pirate. Nor is the ship in my hands. It belongs solely to Desiré."

"You lie with convincing conviction."

"I don't lie at all."

"But you admit instigating my ship's sale behind my back."

"I withheld no information that was harmful to you."

"A lie by omission is no less a lie."

"If deception was my game, if taking your ship from you was my goal, why didn't I take advantage of the troubles that have befallen you? Why did I labor like every other man in that yard to repair your ship?"

Why had he?

"Why did I argue with Jackson to extend the deadline?"

Is that what he'd been doing the day she'd heard, from the warehouse window, Jackson's angry declarations but none of Royce's quiet responses?

"Why not just hold you to the clauses in a legal contract that would have forced you into such dire straits that you'd have given up the ship for half its value?"

Why not indeed?

This wasn't the first time he'd used logic to persuade her. When he'd asked for her trust, he'd reasoned that she'd already entrusted her immobilized legs to his care, had already placed her safety in his hands. And had he not kept her safe? Had he not healed her damaged limbs? Had he not brought pleasure to a body that had known only pain for far too long?

Yet, something about Royce Devlin's logic raised misgivings like a lapping wave ripples the sand of a beach.

Perhaps he did not lie. Perhaps everything he told her was true. Perhaps her ripple of doubt came from what he did not say.

Lie by omission.

He'd never admitted knowing Desiré du Lac, only that his and Jackson's was an old friendship. He'd said little about the past and less of the future. He'd never spoken of love.

Lie by omission.

The broken pieces of Megan's heart ached. She struck back in the best way she knew how, with a sharp tongue. "Maybe you've grown greedy. Maybe you want my timber rich lands and sawmill as well as my ship."

Adamantly, he shook his head. "I want none of your land. I don't want your ship."

The tears Megan refused to shed turned the dust of her dashed dreams into a thick mortar. One brick at a time, she began reconstructing the wall between her heart and a man whose lies were unspoken. She prepared herself for the lie she would force him to speak.

"But if I were to offer you a marriage, you'd accept."

"Not without your trust. Not without your love."

"Because with my love and trust, you can take everything?"

"Because when you love and trust me, you'll be able to believe that I love you."

Megan shot to her feet. "Liar!"

Royce snared the fist she shook at him.

"Let go of me," she cried out, fighting his grip.

But he held on, and he pressed her balled up hand against his breast. "Look into my eyes, Megan, and know that you'll find no truer heart than the one beating beneath your hand."

"No!"

"I love you, Princess."

"Don't."

"I have known of that love since the morning we rode the back of my mare together."

"The morning after you took me to your bed."

"The morning after we both chose to be together, Princess. Without pity. Without seduction. Without deceit."

His heart beat strong beneath her hand. She shouldn't have brought herself within his reach. She shouldn't have let him capture her hand. She shouldn't have let herself feel the beat of his life, of his soul. She was helpless against his touch.

"No truer heart," he said, as though he knew the conflict raging within her.

She wanted to believe him. She wanted his love as much as she wanted to love him. But, there could be no trust until he confessed the one truth he had yet to reveal.

She forced herself to look into the tarnished depths of Royce Devlin's eyes and asked in a voice frail as sea foam, "What of your Desiré? Did your heart once beat true for her, too?"

Guilt quaked in the rusty pools that lead to Royce Devlin's soul. The mortar between the bricks walling off her heart dried a little more.

"In a different way," he said slowly, carefully.

Why carefully? Did he not remember that Jackson Carter had called the Celtic Cross in the figurehead's hand the French woman's nuptial concession? Soon, the mortar would be fully dried and the wall around a wounded heart impervious to any blow, whether it be truth or lie.

"Is she or is she not Desiré du Lac Devlin?" Megan demanded, afraid of his answer, yet more afraid it would come too late for her to ever feel anything again.

"Desiré's very much a Devlin," he fired back as though what he revealed didn't chink one brick from Megan's protective wall.

"Another woman who refuses to use her husband's name." Megan sighed as though resigning herself to that one hole exposing her heart. "Is that not what you said?"

"She's as adamant in that area as you."

One tear trickled from the corner of Megan's eye. She tore her hand free and turned aside.

"Princess?" The endearment sounded flat in her ears, tainted. "What do you think Desiré is to me?"

Focusing on the ship's model atop the fireplace mantel, Megan stepped away from her chair, away from where Royce Devlin faced her across the desk. But he cut her off at the end of the table. Too late, she realized she'd left her cane beside the chair, that she needed the support of table or man to keep herself upright. She leaned back against the edge of the table.

"What do you think Desiré is to me?" he asked again, standing so close to her that she felt the heat radiate off his thighs, that she smelled the scent of their lovemaking on his lips. She turned her face aside, afraid he'd touch her, afraid she'd surrender if he did or die if he didn't.

He braced his hands against the table to either side of her hips, trapping her as she feared he could, as she wanted him to. "Megan." The syllables of her name rippled on his breath across her cheek. "Desiré is my mother."

Megan's head snapped up. "Your what?"

"My mother." He nudged the side of her hand with his thumb, a sheepish smile tugging at his lips. "You thought she was my wife, didn't you?"

"But the figurehead -- "

"Is of a vain woman as she sees herself."

Right full of the old girl to have a figurehead made in her likeness. Why hadn't she remembered that Jackson had also spoken those words?

Lack of trust. Lack of faith.

She had no reason to lack faith now. Royce had answered every question she'd asked. That his answer to the last hadn't been what she'd expected was good. Why then did she feel like there was yet a question unanswered between them?

He gathered her hands into his, his warmth, his strength spreading over her chilled fingers. "She's an autocratic woman whose parentage I have denied since the day I hired on as a cabin boy aboard a mangy merchantman and sailed out of her life."

He pressed her hands into the opening of his shirt, the pulse of his heart sure, solid. "I hid nothing from you out of malice. I hid only my shame that I abandoned my family because of my own ruffled pride, that I'd spent all of my adult life proving my worth to a woman I denied."

He bowed his head close to hers, his voice low, hypnotic. "Look into my eyes, Princess. See the truth in them. No truer heart beats for you than does mine."

His heart thumped beneath her palms, underscoring the entreaty in his tarnished eyes. Megan tilted her head back. The breath he pulled in through his parting lips sailed over hers, a cool breeze, a last chance to break free before the sultry winds of passion swept her away.

Her lashes sank over her eyes. She tipped her chin toward his. She could almost feel the smooth, silky heat of his lips.

Her hands slid under the collar of his shirt, stroked over the crests of his shoulders, and tightened across the back of his neck. She rose onto her toes, his mouth just a breath away from hers when the door from the entry hall swung open.

Megan's gaze whipped at the man striding through the room toward them. His pale blue eyes were bleary with the effects of yesterday's celebrating. But the cockeyed grin she'd learn to recognize as three parts charm and one part something else angled securely across Jackson Carter's mouth. It was the unnamed part she mistrusted.

Just as she should be mistrusting the affects of Royce Devlin's touch. She'd foolishly let herself fall under his spell once more. She dropped her hands from his neck.

Jackson stopped at the corner of the desk, his eyes measuring the proximity of Megan's body to Royce's. He winked at Royce. "You two took off from the yard so quickly that I hadn't the chance to deliver this."

He held out a folded and sealed paper to Royce. "I think you better read it first, just in case there's a few details you haven't settled yet with Miss McCall."

Before Royce could react, Megan slipped from between him and the desk and snatched the missive from Jackson. He reached after her. "Give me the letter, Princess."

Jackson's grin slipped. "It is addressed to Royce."

"But involving me, considering what you said," she shot back, scooting along the edge of the writing table away from Jackson, away from Royce.

Royce glared at Jackson. "Who's it from, as if I can't guess?"

"Desiré," Jackson answered.

Megan sliced the wax seal apart with the nail of her thumb.

"What's in it?" Royce demanded, the scratch of the stiff paper being unfolded reminding him of the scuff of a man's soles against the steps of a gallows.

Jackson rocked back on his heels. "Nothing bad, unless I've misread what passes between the two of you."

Royce cursed and started after Megan.

She rounded the far end of the table, her cheeks already scarlet from what she read and her knuckles white from the pressure of her fingers clenching the letter. When she looked up at him, it was through eyes wild as a sea in the winter gale.

"It says here that the Lady of the Lake is to be a wedding gift to you."

"Princess -- " He advanced toward her.

She edged toward her chair, putting the writing table between them. "It seems there's something else you have omitted from your confession."

"I didn't know about this."

Her hip struck the arm of the chair behind the table. He reached for her. She thrust the letter at him, stopping his advance. "Now I know what still nagged at me even after your sweet words of love. A son and his mother can plot treachery just as surely as a husband and wife."

"Megan, no."

She looked at Jackson. "Your mistress' timing is off, Mr. Carter. Your old friend has not yet proposed marriage nor am I inclined to accept any proposal from a pirate."

All the charm was gone now from Jackson's face. "I think Desiré meant the gift as an inducement."

"For whom? Her son? Is he to bind himself legally to the widow with the timber rich forest, sawmill, and shipyard?"

"I believe Desiré meant the gift as a way of mending the rift between her son and herself, a token that she condones his choice."

Royce winced, knowing what Megan must think, seeing the accusation in her face before she even spoke the words.

"She approves of the land rich widow, does she?"

"My mother already has all the land she could ever want!" Royce growled, frustrated by Megan's stubbornness, angered by his mother's interference. He brought his fist down hard on the corner of the desk. Megan didn't even flinch. She just stared at the emissary.

"What Desiré du Lac doesn't have is her eldest son," Jackson said, his tone level, cajoling. "She thinks you are key to returning him to the family fold because, in more than a decade, the only time he ever contacted her was for your sake."

"You lie well for your mistress and her son."

Jackson stiffened. "I don't lie at all, Miss McCall."

"I've heard that line before." She glanced at the book of heraldry still open on the desktop, then at Royce. "I want you and your mother's lackey to leave my property."

"Megan, please -- "

Her eyes darkened like a sea tossed by a raging storm. "You have ten minutes to gather your belongings and get off Hillhouse land."

He leaned toward her. "And if I won't leave."

"I'll summon Dunn to bodily remove you."

"He'll have to kill me to get me away from you."

Opening the drawer of the writing table, she pulled out a pistol and aimed it at his chest. "You will leave my lands. It's up to you whether you'll leave them dead or alive."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

He'd been expecting her all morning, wondering what her reaction would be when she pulled her phaeton up to the warehouse and found his dark mare tied to the hitching post there. Royce didn't have to wonder any more. Megan was storming toward The Lady of the Lake as fast as her imperfect legs could carry her. Soon she'd need a cane for little more than decoration. He hoped he'd still be in her company when that happened.

Which wasn't likely as long as she still believed he'd betrayed her. And given the way she stabbed her cane against the boards this morning, it didn't look like she'd changed her mind.

She stopped at the bottom of The Lady's gangway and lifted her chin toward the rail where he stood. "I told you to stay off of my property!"

His thumb flexed against the railing when it was the tight pucker of her lips it wanted to tease apart. "I'm not on your property, Princess."

"And I'd thank you not to use that term when addressing me." This time her voice sounded less harsh, more broken, as though her words climbed from a throat made raw by tears.

"Megan," he beseeched.

"This is my yard!" she howled.

Regret dragged at Royce's shoulders. What he was about to remind her of wouldn't aid his cause.

"But the pier is public and this ship is no longer yours."

"So, you've accepted the title of The Lady though you've not met the condition of marriage. How appropriate for a pirate."

He sighed. "Like it or not, Princess, I'll be overseeing the finishing of this vessel."

She stepped forward, snubbing her toes against the gangway where it braced the pier. Royce moved into the opening at the top of the passageway, ready to catch her if she attempted the climb up the narrow, railless, plank.

Beneath his feet, The Lady, with her empty belly, swayed, heaving the gangway up and down. Whether it was that motion or his presence at the top of the gangplank that turned Megan away, he didn't know. Royce Devlin knew only that he'd wanted her to come charging at him. He'd wanted her to end up in his arms. He'd needed that one last chance to make her believe in love.

She'd retreated only a few yards when she stopped and turned halfway back toward the ship, toward him. "I may not be able to bar you from what doesn't belong to me, Mr. Devlin," she shouted, "but should you place one foot in my yard or warehouse, I'll have you arrested for trespassing...if I don't shoot you first."

And he had no doubt that she would. Just as he had no doubts to why, in the days following, she assigned the responsibilities she yet bore toward The Lady's finishing to Dunn. He could only count on time to cool her temper, for her to see reason in what he'd done and to see what he had not done.

But, with the raising of the masts, with each piece of woodwork laid and the finishing of every bunk, shelf, and cabinet, she allowed him no closer to her. She'd slip in and out of her warehouse without so much as a glance in his direction. As cargo filled the hold and the water line rose on The Lady's hull, Royce knew the day grew near when he'd have no more excuses to stay moored at the end of the pier upon which Megan McCall's warehouse was built.

It was under a blustery sky that Royce Devlin rechristened the ship, the gift which had cost him the woman he loved. Megan McCall would not be able to ignore this finishing touch to the vessel at the end of her pier. Within hours, all of Norfolk would be abuzz with speculation of why Royce Devlin had changed the name of the schooner Megan McCall had built.

***

Megan rolled her forehead against the frame of the loft office window. She closed her eyes, trying to blot out what had been boldly lettered across the bow of the schooner she'd sold to Desiré du Lac Devlin.

The Sea Princess.

Why couldn't Royce have left well enough alone? Why hadn't he just finished his ship and sailed out of her life? The only consolation left to her now was the fact that The La -- , The Sea Princess was daily being loaded with cargo and supplies. When she was fully loaded, she'd have to sail away.

But that didn't make her happy either. And Megan knew why. She wanted to be persuaded by her gentle pirate. She wanted to be lured beyond reason. She wanted to love Royce Devlin.

Clouds gathered over the Chesapeake as gray as her mood. Megan turned away from the window, closed the account books she'd been unable to concentrate on, and pulled on her gloves. Then she exited the warehouse, climbed into her phaeton, and drove away from the yard, away from the one man who had swept her off her feet as she'd dreamed only the love of her life could. She wouldn't be returning. She knew that in her heart as deeply as she knew she loved a man she dared not trust.

But the cacophony of a bustling waterfront and business district rang a discordant note in her ears as she traversed the city. People she drove past, people she knew called out greetings, taunting her desire to be like them, able to trust.

She steered Gray Girl away from the crowded streets and off the main thoroughfare with uncertain hands. Something seemed to be calling her back. Still, she retreated into the solitude that was Hillhouse's barren fields and bleak bluff road as the filly traveled their usual route home. At home she would find peace.

But thoughts of the plantation house conjured images of Royce Devlin's broad shoulders filling her bedchamber doorway, of his hands massaging the ache from her over-exercised legs, of his lusty, rusty eyes as he took her in his bed.

She'd find solace at the waterfalls, then.

Except that the falls evoked the memory of two people comforting each other in the most intimate of ways.

She'd go to the stables then, occupy herself with her Cinnabar. Though he, too, had carried her to more than one tryst in the woods with a pirate who wore the shades of the earth like he'd been born from clay rather than salt water.

Megan cursed and sucked a sharp breath. She couldn't trust a man who called her what she was not, a princess. Not when a husband who'd worshipped her as a goddess had wreaked havoc she'd be a lifetime repairing.

Autumn rode the wind, slicing under the phaeton hood, invading Megan's tenuous sanctuary with a ripening scent that reminded her of mortality and a day one year ago when death had last visited her. Tears popped from the corners of her eyes as the events of the past year and a half tumbled around her like falling leaves. Tears brimmed along her lower lashes as the gray's hooves struck sparks from the stones at the crest of the bluff road, as Megan remembered Peter Tallmadge's final words.

Forgive me, Megan.

She hadn't been able to, not that day. She hadn't been able to forgive him through the year since his death, not when she'd lived to learn far more than a girl of eighteen should have had to know. She doubted she ever would.

Hot, angry tears flowed down Megan's cheeks as she realized all that Peter had stolen from her. She screamed her outrage. But the wind threw the fury back into her face, peppered her eyes with the dust churning up off the filly's pounding hooves.

Too late, Megan realized why the filly's strides had lengthened out. Too late, she saw the small, hunched form on horseback slashing the gray with a whip.

Gathering her wits, Megan pulled the pistol out from under the seat cushion. But the whip lashed her wrist before she could cock the hammer, sending the gun flying. She hauled back on the reins, but the wheels had already jumped from the ruts in the road. The phaeton was already skidding toward the precipice of the bluff where Megan had once before faced death.

***

"What do you mean, Jaisy sent you here, to the shipyard, with a message for Miss McCall?" Royce yelled, his face inches from young Bradley's. "Megan headed for home hours ago!"

Matthew Bradley blinked but held his ground. "She ain't at Hillhouse, Mr. Royce. And she weren't on the road to town."

"Which route did you take?"

"The shortest, sir. I was on foot."

"Through the woods." The last word Royce spoke before he vaulted onto Raven's back and dug his heels into her ribs hissed from between his teeth like a curse. Those he left behind didn't hear the rest of his oath. "The bluff road."

But the dark mare he'd fancied because her raven coat reminded him of Megan's hair heard. Her small ears swiveled back at him and sparks flew from her striking hooves as she hurried through the city. When the road cleared ahead, she readily obeyed the pressure of Royce's knees and rode them toward the plantation. If only Megan had obeyed her heart as easily.

"She'd be in my arms instead of -- "

The chilly breath of autumn stole Royce's voice. Or was it the speed with which the mare carried him or the cold terror of where Megan might be that robbed him of word and thought?

Or the fear of what she might have done to herself? He'd almost forgotten what he'd once thought about the carriage crash that had made her a widow. He'd tried to.

Now, he could only react, and his reactions drove him onto the crest of the bluff, drove him with stark terror toward the overturned phaeton at the edge of the bluff. He bounded from Raven's back and searched the ruins of the carriage. It was empty and the ground around it uncluttered by a diminutive body with hair like polished ebony and skin of alabaster.

With hammering heart, he knelt at the edge of the precipice and peered down into the gloom of dusk. With anxious eyes, he searched the jagged rocks that had already claimed the life of a man and an unborn child. He searched for the woman who'd survived one such descent. But he could make out nothing among the shadows and the mist.

He leaped back onto the mare. She tore off down the grade toward the plantation house, toward the base of the bluff as though her mind was as one with his. But, just as she'd have wheeled off the road toward the rocky shoreline at the base of the bluff, a gray horse shied in the mist threading around the gravestones of the cemetery to the far side of the road. A pale cloth fluttered in the cloaking dusk.

Royce drew Raven up so swiftly, she half reared. He dropped from her back and ran to where a petticoat had been given up to the wind by a tattered gown.

At Peter Tallmadge's grave, Royce sank to his knees. He was almost afraid to touch the frail form slumped against the headstone. Then her lashes fluttered and she looked at him.

When she spoke, Megan's voice was starkly, ominously calm. "I couldn't forgive Peter. I blamed him for the failure of the plantation when he'd been handed fields already ruined by over-planting. I blamed him for lack of business at the shipyard when he knew nothing of shipping or shipbuilding."

She rolled her cheek against the rough stone. "Over his grave, I've called him a coward for not facing me with his failures when those failures were as much mine."

Royce pried one of Megan's hands from the cold stone of her husband's grave marker, his thumb sweeping her abraded palm. "Are you injured anywhere?"

"He was just a boy," she went on as though not hearing him.

"You're cold as ice," he muttered, shucking his coat and tucking it around her shoulders.

"My fault he died," she said, her breath faint on his cheek.

Royce's fingers hesitated on the slim arm they probed for injury. "You don't have to tell me about that night."

"A boy playing at a man's game. Gambling seduced Peter. That's why it was so easy for me to blame everything on his obsession...until tonight."

Royce's hands went numb around the leg her torn skirts exposed and the question climbed his throat and escaped his mouth like an echo he wished he could recall. "What happened tonight?"

A sad chuckle rode the air currents between them. "I learned the force of obsession. Mine caught up with me."

"What obsession?" he asked, unable to stop himself from probing for answers to questions he wished had never been whispered inside his head.

"My need to drive the bluff road home."

The autumn night air sliced up Royce's sweat-soaked spine.

"Do you know why I always drive that road home?" she asked.

Icy dread gripped his heart. He didn't want to know. But he needed to know. He shook his head.

"I didn't know myself for a long time. Then, I realized I was searching for something. Even though I blamed Peter for all our failures, part of me wanted to find some proof that what happened a year ago on that bluff had been an accident."

The hairs at the nape of Royce's neck stood on end. He tugged on her arm. "I'll take you home, Princess."

She was dead weight against Peter Tallmadge's gravestone and her confession relentless. "I kept searching for the rut that could have veered the phaeton off the road or the point at which the setting sun blinded a person. I kept looking for some thing to excuse what a human hand had done on purpose."

Royce's stomach lurched. "Megan, please. Just come into the house with me."

"Obsession." Megan shrugged. "Mine nearly accomplished tonight what his failed to do a year ago."

"Say no more."

Megan's voice, though still low and oddly calm, pierced him like sleet. "Jubal Toombs was on the bluff tonight."

Royce's attention sharpened on the here and now. "Toombs?"

"He knew I always take the bluff road home. He laid in wait for me."

"What did that devil's spawn do to you?"

"He tried to force me off the bluff. He almost succeeded. The phaeton tipped over."

"When I get my hands on him, I'll tear him limb from limb."

"I'd have shot him myself -- " She lifted her other hand from the stone marking the foreshortened life of her husband and turned her wrist into the failing light of nightfall. " - - if he hadn't been quicker with his whip."

With barely contained rage, Royce traced a fingertip across the angry welt raised against her fine skin and snarled, "I'll flay the flesh from his bones!"

Megan's chin came up, shifting the mass of her hair back from her face. "Where's my Gray Girl? She needs tending."

"She's here, in the cemetery."

"She was still tethered to the phaeton when I came to."

He was more concerned about the blood clotted at Megan's temple. "I'll send James out to tend her as soon as we get into the house."

"She's an exceptional animal," she went on as he gathered her up in his arms. "She let me ride her back to the house. Not many harness horses accept being mounted."

He carried her as he would a baby from the graveyard. The whisper of his name on her breath shivered through him like a premonition. "Royce, I need to tell you what happened on the bluff a year ago."

"You don't have to," he muttered, his strides lengthening as though reaching the sanctuary of the plantation house would stay her confession.

"You need to know, so you'll understand."

Royce pressed her close. "Don't talk. Save your strength."

"Peter and I were both supposed to have died."

He kicked open the back door, startling Jep who was lighting the hall candles. "Tell Jaisy we need hot water, lots of it," Royce ordered, "and send James out to tend the horses."

He climbed the stairs two and three at a time, Megan's breath surprisingly warm against his neck for the chilling words she spoke. "Peter expected me to shatter on the rocks like the porcelain doll he thought I was. He'd rather I died than learn of his failures."

Royce stopped dead outside her bedchamber door and stared at her tousled head. "You weren't driving that night."

She let her head roll back on his shoulder, and she peered up at him through pained but clear eyes. "My surviving the carriage crash was his last failure."

Relief unraveled through Royce. Hugging Megan tight against his chest, he crossed the threshold into her room.

"But he still killed part of me," she persisted.

"It doesn't matter," he murmured against her temple, setting her gently on the daybed.

She pressed her fingertips to his lips as though it was the last she'd ever touch them. "Peter killed my trust. Without trust, love is doomed. I will doubt you and you will learn to hate me for it. That's why I can't let you stay. That's why I can never love you. That's why you must leave."

***

Once Megan was asleep, Royce left her to Jaisy's care. But he didn't leave Hillhouse. He wasn't leaving as long as Megan's life was in danger. And when he made her safe, then they would deal with her misguided notions of trust and love.

But first, he had to unearth the reason why an attempt had been made on Megan's life. Why, not who? Because, like Dunn, Royce believed Toombs too lazy to take such measures without additional motive. Royce also had a good idea who was behind Toombs' attack. The hint had come from Megan herself when she'd described the bald- faced horse Toombs had ridden. Not that a white face was a unique equine feature, but it narrowed the list of suspects to one household.

Motive was what eluded Royce. Motive was what nagged him sleepless through the long night, what nipped at his heels as he paced from empty room to empty room as though the answer could be found somewhere within the walls of Hillhouse itself.

Near dawn, he found himself in a room that reached from front to back of the first floor opposite Hillhouse's library and dining room. A sweep of his candlestick revealed bagged chandeliers and draped furniture. He should flee the chamber where balls were hosted. He'd had his fill of such excess as a boy in a household governed by an autocratic mother.

Yet he lingered, prowling the perimeter of the chamber, stepping over rolled up rugs, running a hand along the high mantel of the fireplace that dominated the long wall opposite the hall entry. He fingered the edge of a dust cloth that had slipped from a corner of the painting above the mantelpiece.

He paced across the room. He paused beside an uncovered side table. He set his candle down, leaned back against the wall, and folded his arms over his chest.

The candle at his elbow sputtered, drawing his gaze to the stub of wax dripping onto its pewter plate, to the dust that had collected on the surface of the bare table. He trailed a finger through the film and, in the guttering candlelight, he studied the figure he'd traced in the sediment. Megan wasn't going to like hearing who he thought was her most lethal enemy.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Megan was almost to the bottom of the stairway when she saw the open salon door. She hadn't been in that room since she and Peter had argued over throwing a party. Her mother had been dead only four months, her father not six. Megan yet mourned. Peter had sulked. Last night, when she'd finally found it in her heart to forgive Peter, she'd put the losses of her past behind her. Just as she'd have to get used to losing Royce Devlin.

The unhooped skirt of her morning rail shifted against her legs, reminding her of his light touch. He had gone, hadn't he?

His absence from her bedside this morning, his unslept in bed on the third floor, and the fact that Jaisy had not seen him since the middle of the night suggested her argument had convinced him. So, that was that.

She pressed the loose, pearly white bodice of her gown over her stomach and stepped toward the open door of the salon, drawn like a magnet to rusted steel. She'd meant to just close the door. But she paused on the threshold, letting her eyes adjust to the dim interior as though she searched for a human presence in the low light.

Then she saw him, all earth tones against the pale dust cloth draping the settee against the inside wall, his long legs sprawled out in front of himself. Her heart stuttered.

"You're still here," she said in a voice that sounded far more relieved than she'd meant to reveal.

In one unbroken movement, he rose and strode toward her, his unbound hair rippling about his face and shoulders, the unfastened neck opening of his shirt exposing a wealth of smooth, bronze chest. The sheer physical power of him sent Megan's blood scattering and made her breath catch in her throat. She tore her gaze away.

"That I am, Princess," he said in a ragged voice, stopping in front of her, their toes almost touching.

She glanced up at him, at a face deeply creased by lack of sleep. She wanted to smooth away those lines. She almost did.

He caught her raised hand as she began to withdraw it and tugged her against his chest. She pressed her face into the folds of his rumpled shirt. His heat seeped through the linen weave. He smelled of salty air and loamy soil. He felt like something she wanted to hang onto for forever.

But there could be no forever between a pirate who withheld truths and a princess who could not trust.

She flattened her hand against his chest. He loosened his hold on her, but didn't let her go completely. "Megan -- "

She closed her eyes, wanting to memorize the raspy way he said her name and how his deep voice ruffled her every nerve ending. But he wouldn't stop speaking, wouldn't end with just her name. " -- someone wants you dead."

She squeezed her eyelids tighter, trying to blot out what was, wanting just one more moment of what could have been.

His fingers closed around her upper arms, ten firebrands searing her flesh. "Megan, look at me."

She opened her eyes, hoping to distract herself from the agony of his touch, his scent, his heat. But concern etched his eyes and mouth, and brutal honesty swam in the dark centers of his rusty eyes. She didn't want to see any of it, even though honesty was what she'd demanded. Maybe there was merit to the occasional omission of truth or even an outright lie.

His voice took on a ragged edge that matched the torment crimping his eyes. "You could have been killed last night."

Numbly, she nodded.

"The first thing we're establishing is that I'm not leaving your side until whoever wants you dead is caught."

She shouldn't let him stay. His very nearness invited the kind of contact they now shared. And she couldn't think when he touched her. Still...

"It shouldn't take long to apprehend Toombs," she said a little breathlessly, a little regretfully.

His fingers tightened on her upper arms, sharpening her attention. "Until whoever wants you dead is apprehended."

"Whoever?" she questioned, confused. "It was Toombs who forced me off the road. I saw him with my own eyes."

"I know."

"And when the shipbuilding crew became ill and the ship splattered with paint, didn't we all agree that poisoning the stew was among Toombs' favorite methods of torment?"

Royce nodded, his fingers flexing over the soft flesh of her upper arms. "How about the fires in the yard and at the mill?"

"You thought he set them."

"I also agreed with you and Dunn and anyone else who knew Toombs that the man was lazy."

"As well as pointing out that even a lazy man can be coaxed beyond his potential given the proper motivation," she shot back.

He dipped his chin, a single nod of agreement.

A cold draft shivered up Megan's spine as she realized what Royce had led her to understand. "You think someone hired Toombs to kill me."

"I think someone hired Toombs to ruin you. When you didn't fail -- "

"Kill me."

"But make it look like you killed yourself."

"And what better way to accomplish that than to drive me off the bluff on the anniversary of the first crash. Considering all that's been speculated this past year -- "

Her head swam. She swayed. If not for Royce's support, she'd have crumpled to the floor.

"I shouldn't have kept you standing," he muttered, slipping an arm around her waist and drawing her toward the couch.

She clamped her free hand over his forearm and leaned against her cane. "I'm fine."

"I'd rather you sit."

She looked him in the eye. "And I'd rather you tell me who you think is behind Toombs' chicanery."

A shadow passed over Royce's face, the kind that comes from inside a man rather than from a cloud crossing the sun. He nodded and led her to an undraped side table. Someone had drawn the profile of a horse's head in its dust with a none too slim finger.

"You described the horse Toombs was riding. Does that look like it?"

"Exactly," she said, astonished by the accurate depiction of the wide, white blaze bleeding down over the horse's eye and off his muzzle. "I hadn't realized I'd described the animal in such detail."

"You didn't."

She shot Royce a look. She didn't like the determined look in his eye, didn't like at all the regret deepening the lines already scored into their outer corners.

He thumped the etched figure with his knuckle. "I saw this horse auctioned off two weeks ago."

She drew a deep breath, certain she wouldn't like the answer to the question she couldn't avoid asking. "Who bought him?"

"Peyton Lyttle."

Royce watched the color drain from Megan's face, felt her muscles cinch against his arm, his shoulder, his side.

"He might not have kept him," she protested. "Or Toombs could have stolen him."

"Easy enough to check."

Her eyes were wide as a horizonless sea and just as stark. "And if Toombs stole him only for the night, if he returned the animal before morning?"

Royce wanted to gather Megan up and carry her back to her bed where he could keep her safe, where he could kiss her to distraction and put off having to tell her all the truths she didn't want to hear. But Megan McCall wasn't the kind of woman who'd let any question go unanswered, however harsh the reality of its answer.

"The animal will show signs of hard use," he said, "just as he would if he'd been loaned out for the task."

She looked at the etching in the dust. She shook her head. "Peyton's not the only resident of Lyttlehouse." Her eyes angled at him, dark and unreadable in a room lit only by what sunshine seeped around heavy drapes and through a single, open door. "His bride harbors an unconcealed resentment of me. And as my next of kin, Cornelia Mae is first in line to inherit Hillhouse."

"Thus doubling the size of her husband's estate."

"A doubling of fields ruined by tobacco," she pointed out.

"Access to a navigable river, then."

Megan shook her head. "The Lyttles have river access for as long as they own the land neighboring Hillhouse's. My grandfather added an irrevocable clause to Hillhouse's deed guaranteeing it. The two families have been like one for as long as I can remember."

"He'll gain a timber rich forest and working mill," Royce argued. "Is there a plantation owner anywhere along the Tidewater who hasn't spent his land by over-planting, who wouldn't benefit from the added income of a sawmill?"

"From my sick bed I offered Peyton a partnership. If he hired the woodcutters and ran the mill, I'd give him half the profit earned from my timber. He declined."

"Maybe he wants more than half the profit. Maybe he covets the fresh fields a culled forest would provide. Maybe Peyton Lyttle has desires you can't even fathom."

"If you knew Peyton as long as I have -- "

"If you knew him as I do!"

"And how is that?"

Royce's mouth hung empty when he'd thought himself ready to give her the raw truth she demanded. But this truth would pain her and cost him.

"How do you know Peyton?" she pressed in a voice cold and hard as ice.

He could refuse. He could spare her. But the price might be her life. Royce pulled in a deep breath. "The cargo in the hold of my ship, the pirated cargo which cost me my freedom and everything I owned belonged to Peyton Lyttle."

She jerked out of the loop of his arm. "Peyton in league with pirates? I don't believe it!"

He didn't pause to remind her she easily thought of him as a pirate, didn't linger over the ache that fact caused his heart. "Lyttle hired me to transport his ill-gotten cargo and, when it was discovered in my hold, when I was charged with possessing stolen goods, he denied ownership."

She paced a half circle around him. "There'd have been a bill of lading with his signature."

"There was." He followed her progress behind him by ear. "But it mysteriously disappeared. It seems your Peyton had friends in higher places than were mine."

The soft scuff of her slippered feet went silent. He cocked his ear over his shoulder. "He has friends in high places, does he not?"

"Well placed gentlemen generally do," she said in a brittle voice.

He turned and faced her, a shadow of ivory and alabaster against the dark drapes. "You decry gentlemanly honor yet defend a man who wields the most arrogant of that breed's virtues like a royal scepter. Why?"

"He's never done anything to harm me."

"He just calls your business acumen unladylike and scolds you like a child when you keep your own counsel."

A sliver of sunlight sliding through a slit where the draperies didn't quite meet caught her upward slicing chin. "True, he's never been comfortable with my independent nature."

"Damn it, Megan. Do you really believe he cares for you? Did you think he sought marriage to you out of love?"

The thread of light from the mismatched drapes shuddered over her shoulder. "Do you think I am so naive that I don't know why a man of land and status would want to marry a girl he has called spirited to a fault?"

She thumped her chest with a balled up hand. "Do you think I don't know that every asset I would inherit wasn't thoroughly scrutinized before a match was even hinted? Do you think that I'm unaware that my ability to produce heirs wasn't discussed ad nauseam before marriage was offered?"

Royce winced. "I'm not wholly unfamiliar with the process of selecting a bride."

"Spoken like a man who has shopped for more than horse flesh."

"I was the first born son of a plantation owning mother."

Megan reached behind herself and drew one of the drapes aside until sunlight slashed across him, making him squint to see her as she hooted, "Behold. The heir apparent."

"Until my recklessness cost my younger brother the ability to learn the trade my mother had chosen for him."

She released the drape and the shaft of sunlight poured over her and across the floor between them. "Shipbuilding?"

He wanted to step through the dust motes kicked up by the disturbed draperies to her. He wanted to make her understand that none of that mattered any more. But he only nodded.

"So you were sent to apprentice in his place," she said in a tone that accused. "And the land went to him. Land you wanted."

"Land that was my birthright," he leveled back at her.

"You and Peyton have more in common than you realize," she stated in a cheerless voice and stepped away from the bank of windows with a stride that needed no support from polished cane nor lover's arm.

"I know what Peyton wanted from me." The words trailed her as she moved through the room, each a strident, bitter note. She stopped in front of the fireplace and lifted her chin toward the draped painting above its mantel. "It wasn't land. It wasn't access to a river. It wasn't love."

She reached up and curled her fingers around the trailing corner of the dust cover. "I present to you my mother."

Megan gave the cloth a short, quick yank. The drape jumped from the corners of the gilt edged frame and shimmied down over a canvass made resplendent by the beauty of the young woman preserved there in oil and pigment. She tilted her defiant chin toward the artist, toward the viewer and gazed coyly down her upturned nose. Her ebony tresses dripped against alabaster flesh given up to the eye by a deep cut bodice of turquoise satin.

"Imperia Hill McCall," Megan announced. "Peyton's first love. His only real love. They were betrothed."

Royce gazed a moment longer into the painted eyes that matched the hue of the painted gown before meeting Megan's sea-blue gaze. "You're the very image of her, save for the eyes."

Megan blinked. "I inherited the color of my eyes from my father."

"The man Imperia Hill married instead of the one to whom she was promised," he stated flatly. "Why?"

Even through the veil of dust released by the hasty unveiling, even though she gazed at some point on the floor short of him, he could see the sheen in Megan's eyes. Even though she spoke in a low voice, he could hear the tears of longing clogging her throat. "She fell in love with a seaman who'd grown weary of the wandering life and come to ground on her threshold."

Royce resisted the urge to go to Megan and gather her up in his arms, to silence her, to protect her. He thought he understood what truth of her own she meant to face this morning. He thought putting the facts into words would help. "And Miss Imperia bore the seaman turned shipbuilder a daughter equal to her own beauty."

"Aye. Peyton saw in me a replacement for her."

"Aah, Megan. Did he break your heart?"

An indulgent smile quirked one corner of her mouth. "My heart was never his to break." She focused on him through the sheen of her tears, through the veil of dust, and her tone turned wistful. "I had grander notions of love."

The realization that she was talking about him sliced through Royce like a double edged sword. He'd known her denials last night hid what she feared admitting. He'd known her betrayal had been deep. The proof had been revealed by her long-in-coming forgiveness of the boy who'd been her husband. But, until now, he hadn't understood that there was nothing he could do to erase those scars. Until this moment, he hadn't known that he could do no more for her than to keep her from bodily harm.

His voice came out little more than a hoarse whisper, partly because he knew he too had lost her, partly because he'd begun to see what Lyttle's motive for destroying Megan could be. "So you spurned Peyton Lyttle, also."

She flipped her hand in a small, dismissive gesture. "Papa took the brunt of Peyton's wrath."

"Wrath?"

She nodded. "Peyton raged when my father told him he knew why he wanted to marry me, when Papa refused his first proposal. I'd never seen Peyton like that before nor since. Though Mother seemed unsurprised."

"Yet the man dared approach your father a second time?"

"Oh, no. The second proposal was made shortly after Papa's ship failed to return. But Mother, too, sent him away. She told me that Father had good reason to deny Peyton my hand, as though I didn't already know it."

A chill swept up Royce's spine, like a gust preceding a gale, or a ghost whispering the truth in his ear. "Megan. Are you sure the proposal of marriage Peyton Lyttle brought to your mother that second time was for you?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Megan rolled her head across the pillow, trying to relieve the tightness in the back of her neck. That ache was the reason she'd stripped off her gown and crawled under the coverlet on the little bed in the loft office spare room. A nap would enable her to forget the stiffness in her muscles. But sleep eluded her. Damn Royce Devlin and his absurd suspicion.

She clutched the coverlet over her bare shoulders. Could Peyton's proposal have been for her mother? It could explain the odd way her mother had told her the proposal had been refused.

But Peyton was an only son, obligated to produce heirs. A year and a half ago, Imperia Hill McCall had been beyond child bearing. Royce's theory didn't make sense, at least none that Megan could bear admitting yet.

If only she could sleep. She'd had little in the forty-eight plus hours since Royce had raised his questions, since he'd refused to go anywhere without her. Maybe rested she'd be able to make better sense out of the facts.

She'd almost drifted off when the warehouse door below banged open and booted feet hammered up the stairs. Snatching her ever-ready pistol from under her pillow, she leveled it in front of herself just as the bedchamber door flew open.

Royce stepped into the room, looking almost as wild as his boots had sounded on the steps. "Toombs has been spotted."

She lowered the weapon. "Where?"

Royce closed on the bed. "That's the problem. One report has him in Williamsburg. Another, down the coast."

"If we follow the wrong lead," she said, "he slips away."

Royce nodded, his rusty eyes narrowing. "That's why I'm taking one and Dunn the other."

"Dunn needs a mount," she said.

"He'll use Raven."

"And you?"

"Cinnabar."

"Who'll I ride?"

He slipped the pistol from her fingers. "You're not going."

"But -- "

"And I want you on The Princess where there's only one way on and off that ship. Only one passageway for Otis to guard."

She reached for her gown at the foot of the bed. "You have no right to dictate where I go or don't go."

He snagged her wrist with his fingers. "Right or no, this time you will do as I say."

"The last man whose edict I obeyed nearly killed me."

"I'm not Peter Tallmadge," he snapped and tucked the pistol into the waistband of his breeches.

"And I'm no dim wit to be ordered about."

In one unbroken movement, he rolled her up in the coverlet and hefted her over his shoulder. "In case you get the idea to send someone to fetch your gown -- " He bunched the garment up in his fist. " -- It won't be here."

"Blast you, Royce Devlin," she railed, cursing him as he carried her along the pier, squirming for freedom even though undoing her binding would make her a spectacle in her spare, cotton chemise.

He dumped her on the bunk in the main cabin of the schooner. "Now give me the rest of your underthings."

"You can't -- "

"I will, even if I have to climb under that blanket with you, Princess, and strip you naked with my own hands."

She pulled the blanket up to her chin. He hadn't touched her intimately since she'd thrown him off Hillhouse land. He hadn't touched her at all since he'd shown her the etching of the bald-faced horse he claimed belonged to Peyton, save for assisting her on and off of Cinnabar, save for this ignominious ride over his shoulder.

"You wouldn't," she dared, half afraid, half hoping he would.

He stretched out his hand at her and waited. The rogue was more gentleman than half the landed gentry of Virginia. Damn him.

And damn herself for lacking the courage to love him. Silently, she stripped off the last of her clothing.

When he held every last stitch she'd worn bundled in his fist, he backed out the door. "Lock this thing behind me."

"I'll damn well lock it against you, you...you blackguard!"

***

Megan had long since given up searching the cabin for something to wear other than a blanket. Blame that on Royce Devlin's blasted pride as well. He'd left Hillhouse with only the clothes on his back and those he'd left payment for.

She trailed a finger over his straight razor. She plucked auburn hairs from his brush. These and the memories they'd made together would have to carry her the rest of her life. A man who ordered a woman about, who lied by omission was no man for her.

She dropped onto the window seat and peered out at the stars winking in the midnight black sky. Between her fingers, she rolled the stands of auburn hair. In her heart, she wished for the impossible. She wished she'd met Royce Devlin before she'd learned distrust.

Maybe, if she kept herself vigilant, she could love him.

But the ribs of her second schooner bleached by moonlight like the bones of a beached whale stood as bleak reminder of what lack of trust would do to love. Among the shadows those ribs cast lurked despair.

Or was that a more earthly form skittering across her yard?

Megan sat up straight. She watched. She waited. The hunched figure darted toward the pier, moonlight sliding along the over-sized, double-edged blade in its hand.

Megan shrank back from the window. "Toombs."

Did he know she was aboard? Had he come for her? She forced herself to peek out the window. He was in the next yard, moving away. Getting away!

Holding the blanket around herself, Megan unlocked the cabin door and dashed up the steps onto the main deck. Otis came instantly alert. "What is it, Missy Megan?"

"Toombs! There!" She pointed. "I must stop him."

Otis flattened his hands at her. "You can't go nowhere, miss. Mr. Royce have my hide if anything happens to you."

"But Toombs is getting away!"

Otis glanced over his shoulder toward the row of piers stretching along the waterfront. "How about I send for Judge Telfair. He'll know what to do."

"Blast you, Otis. I know what to do. And while we wait around here for the Judge to show up, Jubal Toombs gets further and further away."

Otis frowned at her. "Mr. Royce say, if you don't mind me, I gotta lock the cabin from the outside with you inside."

Ire scorched through Megan, searing away her last ounce of caution. How dare Royce Devlin order her locked away like a piece of chattel.

She sank back on her heels, feigning compliance. She nodded. "Send for the Judge. I'll wait for him in Mr. Devlin's cabin." She started to turn away, then paused, as though she'd just thought of something more. "Is young Mr. Bradley about?"

"He keeps watch from the forecastle, miss. Should I send him after the Judge?"

"I'll pen a message for him to deliver. Wouldn't want Judge Telfair underestimating the importance of his assistance. Mr. Bradley," she called toward the fore deck. "I wish to see you below decks."

Easy as a lamb to slaughter, the lad followed her into the cabin. A reminder of who provided him with a roof over his head and he surrendered his clothing to her.

She tugged Matthew Bradley's cap down over her eyes and hurried past Otis. The swaying deck covered for her slight limp. She held her breath as she maneuvered down the gangway, hoping the guard wouldn't notice that young Bradley's shirt now bloused about him and that he went barefoot. Blast the boy his big feet.

Once on the pier, she worried only that Otis would notice her uneven gait and raise the alarm. But he didn't.

As soon as the warehouse blocked any view from aboard The Princess, Megan left the roadway. Cool beach sand oozed up between her bare toes as she trudged off in the direction she'd seen Toombs flee. The overseer was the key to this whole mess. On that one point she and Royce had agreed.

But, to whom his trail would lead was where she and Royce yet differed. Tonight she'd end this ordeal. She'd learn who her nemesis was and prove Royce wrong at the same time. If only Royce hadn't taken her pistol.

If only Toombs would show himself one more time.

There, in a yard half a dozen piers ahead, she glimpsed movement among the shadows. She took to the shoreline, the water soaked sand giving her firmer footing. Though fewer shadows cast their cover that way.

She darted forward, ducked under the dock, and scanned the yard beyond. Nothing moved save for the languid lapping of water across sand. Megan's heart hammered in her chest. Had he moved on to the next yard, or did he lurk yet in the shadows?

She edged her way through the dankness toward the moonlit beach. Something skittered over her feet, startling her, sending her stumbling against a piling.

Her hands slipped over the cold, wet slime on the sea soaked wood. But she managed to keep herself upright, managed to reassure herself that nothing worse than a rat, the four legged sort, scuffed about the deepest shadows where the pier wedged into the land.

Megan studied the beach where moonlight turned silven the hull of a dry docked sloop, half her prow barnacle studded, half scraped clean. Where had Jubal Toombs disappeared to?

Behind her, a sea shell crunched beneath a leather sole. Megan's last thought before she felt the blow against the back of her head was, she should run.

***

Megan woke to the smell of damp burlap over her face. Her mouth unbearably dry, she tried to lick her lips. But a strip of cloth was in the way. When she tried to raise her hand, she discovered her hands and feet bound.

Panic flared through her. But memory of her last conscious moments beneath the pier, of who she'd been following kept her still. She knew whose captive she was. She knew she must escape. And she knew her best plan, at the moment, was to listen to the muffled voices.

"I didn't know it were her till after I'd conked her and her hat popped off. Who could tell, dressed the way she is?"

Toombs' voice.

"Bloody mess, this!" growled a voice she didn't recognize.

"And the two of you couldn't deal with this without hauling me down here?" snarled a third voice, a familiar voice she wasn't clear-headed enough yet to place.

"Particular as you've been about what I was to burn and when I was to run her off the bluff, I figured you had better plans fer her than a blade drawn quick across her throat."

The scuff of pacing feet heightened in Megan's ears. One of her captors had come nearer. She concentrated on keeping her breathing even, on not giving herself away. Then the man spoke.

"If you'd done the job right on the bluff, all of Norfolk would have thought she'd finally gone mad and followed her husband to her death."

This time, Megan recognized the voice. She gasped.

The sound of a leather sole grinding over a gritty floor sharpened in her ears. Megan held her breath, hoping he hadn't heard her.

The voice continued, quieter now yet closer. "And you, Toombs, wouldn't have to be sneaking out of Virginia."

She held herself rigid.

"Nor would there have been any need for me to be here now."

The voice sounded very near her ear. There was a tug at her throat and the bag tore from her head. Reflexively, she blinked at Peyton Lyttle who held a burlap sack in one hand and length of twine in the other.

"Ah my pretty, you're awake. What a pity." He held out his hand toward Toombs. "Give me your knife."

Megan stared at Peyton, still unable to believe that the man her mother had always welcomed into their home could harm her. He leaned over her, wielding Jubal Toombs' double-edged knife. He could have delivered the final betrayal at that moment, he could have slit her throat and she'd have done nothing more than stare at him through bewildered eyes. But it was the ropes around her wrists, not her throat he sliced through.

Megan rolled onto her behind and drew her knees up in front of her. She batted Peyton's hands away when he tried to cut the ropes from her ankles, preferring to untie them with her own numb fingers even though it took longer. She shimmied the gag down over her chin and demanded, "Why, Peyton?"

He stood expressionless in front of the bunk, one hand braced to a hip, the other hanging at his side, Toombs' knife dangling from his fingers.

"If you haven't the stomach fer it," mewed Toombs, "leave her ta me."

Peyton gave the overseer a vexed look. "Leave her to you? So far you've failed to ruin or kill her with your attempts."

"Leave her to me on me own terms. I'll do her right!"

Peyton tossed the knife to Toombs. "Bide your time, man. I'll not risk being discovered aboard a ship bearing her body."

"Then leave."

"It's daybreak, you idiot. I'm stuck aboard this bloody vessel until the cover of nightfall. That, too, I blame on you." Lyttle turned toward Megan, his mouth twisted into a small, nasty smile. "You're just clever enough to figure out some means of escape and lucky enough to succeed, aren't you, m'dear?"

He called over his shoulder to the third man in the cabin. "Are your repairs done, Captain?"

"Aye."

"Then we sail. You can put me ashore at the first sea port outside the Chesapeake."

"And her?" The Captain nodded toward Megan.

Peyton gave Megan's bare feet a long look. "A week or two asea and your poxed crew should be eager for a woman upon whom to slake their vile needs."

Megan's stomach bottomed out. The captain smiled and nodded, then left. Toombs licked his lips. "I could give her a good shaggin' right now."

Peyton scowled. "Leave us, Toombs. You stink up the place."

Toombs grinned lewdly and backed out the door. "Of course you'd be wantin' the first piece of her."

The cabin door closed. Bile rose in Megan's throat. "Why Peyton? It's not for the land. You could have called in your debts at any time and claimed Hillhouse as collateral."

He cast her a weary look. "Aren't you the clever minx? You've got it half figured out already."

"I have nothing figured out," she fired back, climbing onto her knees. "All I know is that you once wanted to marry me and now you want me dead."

He leaned against the bunk partition. "I never wanted to marry you. I but accepted you as an acceptable substitute."

"Substitute?" The word echoed back at her off the wooden walls and valance enclosing the bunk, reminding her what Royce had hinted at. "You never stopped wanting my mother, did you?"

Peyton's mouth thinned. "Imperia was supposed to have been mine. But your father seduced her."

"He loved her," Megan protested.

"She loved me," he yelled, grabbing the valance over the bunk as the ship's lines were cast off. But it wasn't the lurch of the ship slipping from its moorings that froze Megan with eyes upraised. It was the initials carved into the valance beside Peyton's clutching fingers that held her in thrall. Double M's. Her own initials carved by her own hand when, as a child upon her father's ship, she'd claimed the center bunk as her own. They were aboard The Imperia. The blood drained from Megan's heart.

"Imperia Hill gave her heart willingly," she whispered.

"She was a girl and he a seasoned sailor," Peyton argued. "She didn't know her own mind!"

Megan looked into Peyton's glazed eyes and leveled, "But she knew her mind when you came to Hillhouse six weeks after my father failed to return from sea as expected."

"Six weeks after he was dead," Peyton retorted.

The air went out of Megan as though Peyton had just buried his fist in her belly. "You killed him."

"Fought us like a madman. Took a shot to the heart to stop him from coming at me." Peyton sniffed. "I'd meant for him to linger, to know some of the agony I've suffered all these years."

"You told her he was dead."

Peyton stiffened. "I would never have revealed anything so harsh to Imperia's delicate ears. I but informed her that nothing stood in the way of our being together."

Between Megan's ears echoed her mother's words. We are left to live with what is done. Megan groaned. "My mother was not quite the naive girl you thought her to be."

"She was innocent," he insisted.

"Innocent, aye. But not stupid," Megan wailed. "Didn't you think she would realize how you could know her husband was dead?"

"She loved me. She trusted me."

"That she did. She loved and trusted you so much that she'd rather die than admit what you did." Megan crawled to the front of the bunk. "Imperia Hill McCall died of a broken heart as much for the friend she loved as for the husband he killed."

"Silence!"

"Instead of suffering the man you hated, you suffered the woman you swear you loved!" Megan lunged for Lyttle's throat.

He reeled back from the impact, snatching her hands away and flinging her to the floor. "Spawn of Shea McCall, every time I look into your eyes, I see him! I am reminded of the man who took from me my prize, my Imperia! For that, I will destroy everything Shea McCall ever created," Peyton ranted. "Everything, right down to his most precious creation, his daughter!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

"That was a wild goose chase," Royce said, riding up to Dunn in front of the Red Lion Inn. "Unless you found Toombs and did something for which you could be hung."

Dunn shook his head. "Not that I wouldn't have liked to oblige."

Jackson stepped out from between buildings, leading his mount from the inn stables. He stopped at Royce's knee, his expression unusually somber. "Dunn's been telling me what the two of you were about last night. I wish I'd arrived sooner in Norfolk than nightfall last. I could have helped."

Royce snorted. "There was nothing left to do but guard Megan and you're not the man to whom I'd have entrusted the job."

Jackson swung onto his mount's back and grinned at Royce. "Given the state of..,ah...dress Dunn tells me you left Miss McCall in, I think it prudent of me to have awaited a visit with her until we had the benefit of your chaperon."

"A wise decision," Royce leveled, giving his friend a dark look even though he knew Jackson's penchant for teasing.

The three rode side by side along the waterfront street yet uncluttered by tradesmen and their wagons. Gulls squawked and soared overhead. The occasional sailor slept off a hangover in whichever yard he'd passed out in on the way back to his ship. A pair of dock workers argued in the shadows of a pier over a hat they'd found.

"I hear you've been inquiring about for someone to captain The Sea Princess," Jackson said.

Royce nodded.

"I'd have thought you eager to captain her yourself."

"I'll not leave Norfolk until Megan's out of danger."

Jackson grunted. "Your dark friend delays accepting Desiré's invitation to be her Master Shipwright for the same reason."

Royce raised an eyebrow at Dunn. Dunn rubbed the earless side of his head. "I've my own score to settle with Toombs."

Royce laughed. "Nothing to do with any loyalty to Shea McCall's daughter, of course."

A pair of ebony lips slanted a wry angle. "Your mother waited on you a decade. She can wait on me a month or two."

Royce shook his head. "I think Desiré du Lac Devlin has met her match in you, Dunn."

"May the Saints have mercy upon us," Jackson murmured.

The trio burst into laughter, a laughter that died when they rode into sight of McCall Shipyard. Royce spurred Cinnabar forward to where Otis paced the pier in front of the warehouse. Words tumbled from the shipwright before Royce was half out of his stirrups. "She got by me, Mr. Royce."

"How?" Royce demanded, resisting the urge to throttle the man in whose care he'd placed Megan's safety.

"Made young Bradley give up his britches and shirt to her, she did." Otis nodded toward Matthew Bradley now dressed in a borrowed pair of ill-fitting pants he'd tied around his narrow chest. "She walked right by me. Didn't know it was her until Bradley give me a holler from the stairway. By then, she was gone."

"Gone where?"

Otis stared at his feet. "She said she seen Jubal Toombs."

Royce grabbed Otis by the shirtfront. "Where?"

"We been searchin' the waterfront," the shipwright stammered out. "I even sent for Judge Telfair. He'll rouse an army of men to help look for her."

"Which way did she go?" Royce yelled.

Otis held up a shaking hand and pointed in the direction the three riders had just come. Royce's fingers loosened from Otis' shirt. He ran through the images of every prone figure he'd sighted on the beach between the Red Lion Inn and Megan's shipyard. They'd all been garbed as sailors. None was dressed as the boy Bradley had been, as Megan would have been. Then he remembered the pair arguing over a hat they'd found, a hat like that Matthew Bradley had worn.

"She took his hat, too, didn't she?" he demanded.

"Snugged down on her head. Covered her hair good."

Royce wheeled toward Cinnabar, grabbed his reins.

"What is it?" Jackson asked.

"Did you see those two fighting over a hat?" Royce asked as he vaulted onto the stallion's back.

"In the yard where that sleek schooner was getting itself a hasty patch job?"

"What schooner?" Royce asked, his heels at the ready to spur Cinnabar off.

"Come to think of it, she wasn't there this morning."

"Did you call her sleek?" Dunn asked, his voice ominously low, his dark eyes squinting toward the mouth of the harbor.

"Almost as sleek as Miss McCall's vessel," Jackson provided.

"God's blood," Dunn muttered and pointed. "Like that one."

Jackson peered out across the bay where the sun was rising. "Could be."

The schooner tacked hard to larboard, enough to show most of her name painted in bright white lettering near her bow.

"The Imperia," growled Dunn. "A man doesn't build a ship without being able to spot her profile a mile off."

"No," objected Jackson. "It reads The Empire." He looked from Dunn to Royce. "The name quite clearly begins with an E."

"A freshly painted E," Dunn pointed out.

"The Imperia," Royce murmured. "Megan's father's schooner. The ship that supposedly sunk beneath his feet."

Royce jumped from Cinnabar's back and stormed past Otis toward The Princess. "Have the Judge's men scour the waterfront. I'm going after that ship."

***

Megan needed no window to show her when they'd left the harbor. The snap of additional sail, the creak of straining decks, the sensation of a hundred ton ship lifting lightly beneath her marked the moment they'd cleared the headlands.

She pressed her spine into the corner of the bunk to which she'd retreated. She hugged her knees to her chest and watched Peyton pace the cabin between her and the portal. If she'd thought she had a chance to evade him, she'd have dashed up the steps and plunged over the rail into the sea. Better to drown trying to escape than suffer the slow, humiliating death the man she'd believed to be her friend planned for her.

The cabin door banged open and Toombs stepped in, his lewd gaze raking her before settling on Peyton. "Captain says ta tell you a ship's been sighted astern of us."

Peyton nodded, then looked from Toombs to her. "Sly girl that she is, we shouldn't leave her alone to her own occupation. Shall I leave her in your stead, Toombs?"

Toombs' grin showed his rotting teeth. "Would be me pleasure to occupy Miss High and Mighty."

Peyton smiled a thin smile. "Would you like Toombs' form of entertainment, m'dear? Or would you rather accompany me?"

Megan swallowed back the bile rolling up her throat and unfolded from the bunk. Peyton held out a hand to her. She tried to pass without accepting his escort. But he snagged a handful of her hair and jerked her close.

"You'll attempt no tricks with me, m'dear," he snarled through clenched teeth. "Or I'll have you tied naked to the masthead here and now for the pleasure of any man."

The idea of Royce's tender lovemaking tainted by even one touch from one member of this scurrilous crew made Megan shudder, made her behave...if only for the time being.

On deck, Peyton pinioned her between himself and the aft rail as he used the captain's spyglass. "What say you, m'dear?" He lowered the glass from his eye to hers. "Is the schooner that follows just another vessel shipping out same as us?"

Instantly, she recognized the lines her hand had put to paper. But to reveal that The Sea Princess pursued them would thwart any element of surprise on which the men of the unarmed trader would be counting. She nodded. "It's no ship I know."

Peyton's knees dug into the backs of her thighs. "I beg to differ with you, m'dear. The schooner's bow is uncommonly narrow."

"What difference does it make?" she cried out. They're too far behind us to ever catch up."

He ground himself against her buttocks. "Maybe I'll take the first turn at you."

A sob ripped up Megan's throat. "She trails by too much! She can't catch us!"

Grabbing her again by the hair, Peyton hauled her away from the rail. "You'd like for me to believe you, wouldn't you?"

She stumbled across the quarterdeck. She clutched the railing overlooking the lower open decks and shouted, "I'll give you all amnesty if you return me to port."

Peyton's fingers tightened at the base of her skull. "These men have too long been the scourge of the seas, especially this past year with your father's fleet ship at their command. They know no court will free them no matter who pleads their case."

"Then put me ashore anywhere," she begged at the captain and his hands. "I'll repay you with gold!"

"You ain't got none so as I hear," chortled one pirate to the guffaws of the others.

"I'll get some," she shrieked, fighting Peyton's grip as he dragged her down the steps toward the aft mast.

"She's dropped off," called the lookout from his perch on the yardarm.

Peyton's fingers flexed, tugging at her hair. "Seems you've built a ship that hasn't the speed of your sire's."

Sobs of relief and regret tore through Megan. Peyton drew a knuckle along her jaw. "You're such fun to torture, m'dear. 'Twould be a shame to break your spirit too soon."

Megan shuddered, knowing she'd only delayed the inevitable, whether it was her rape or the deaths of the men attempting to rescue her. She'd built The Sea Princess to outrun anything afloat, including the ships of her father's design. And Royce Devlin had been to sea too long not to know all the tricks of a sailor. But, if he'd dropped over the horizon only so he could come at his prey from another direction, the crew of The Princess would still be outgunned and outmanned. In a few hours they'd all know their fate.

***

Royce handled the wheel of The Princess like the sailor ten years of experience had made of him. He angled her slim bow so she cut through the swells like a hot knife through butter, so that her trimmed sails caught every ounce of wind there was. No man aboard her was more motivated than he to catch The Imperia, yet every man under his command worked like demons possessed.

Maybe they were possessed by the spirits of sailors past. God knows his crew was an inexperienced, mismatched lot. He'd had no time to search out a real crew of sailors. Otis, eager to make up for his failure, had volunteered. As did John Seaton who claimed a man didn't build a ship without knowing some of sailing one, and Matthew Bradley for whom Megan had made a place in her home. Dunn, the first to join him as he'd hurried toward The Sea Princess, had at least his years of experience with Shea McCall.

Only Jackson had argued that they couldn't sail with so few hands. "She isn't fitted yet with guns," Jackson had shouted after them. "You'll be dead in the water!"

Not one of the volunteers had faltered in his step. Jackson had barely made it up the gangplank before Dunn hauled it aboard. When Royce had raised a questioning eyebrow at his late arriving friend, Jackson had muttered, "The Princess may be schooner rigged for a small crew, but she still needs a minimum of six sets of hands to sail her."

Only six of them up against a full crew of pirates. But Megan was aboard that ship. It was no longer a gut feeling. Before he'd veered The Princess over the horizon, he'd seen her at the rail of The Imperia, Peyton Lyttle pressed up behind her.

"Give me more sail," Royce shouted as he steered an intercepting course toward the ship of pirates.

***

"Ship ahoy off the larboard!"

The shout of the lookout echoed down the stairwell into the main cabin where Peyton sipped Madeira, Toombs gnawed on a haunch of pork, and Megan sought haven on the bunk where she'd slept as a child.

Slamming the wineglass down with enough force to snap its stem in half, Peyton surged across the cabin and jerked Megan to her feet. "Shall we have another look topside, m'dear?"

The menace in his voice spurred her up the steps into the gloom of the gathering overcast quicker than the pressure of his fingers pinching her upper arm. One handed, he held the spyglass to his eye, sighting on the schooner coming across the sea at them. He cursed and lowered the glass.

"Perhaps I should sample the nectar your lover risks his life to reclaim." Peyton slid the backs of his fingers down her throat. "Be you lamb or wildcat beneath a man's loins?"

She shrank from his touch. He shoved her against the leeward rail. "Tie her here."

Toombs sliced off a length of rope and fastened her by the wrists while Peyton held her. If he hadn't, she'd have dived overboard as much for her own sake as for the lives of the men aboard The Princess.

Peyton paced away from her, his chin angled at the schooner cutting toward them, his voice ripped from his mouth by the mounting wind. "She's not been fitted with guns."

"How certain are ye of that?" asked the captain.

"As certain as I'm standing here."

"For an unarmed vessel, she's coming on mighty sure," called Toombs.

Peyton scowled at his henchman but spoke to the captain. "Wheel this tub about and prepare to fire. They'll turn tail quick enough."

The sea rose, tossing The Imperia. The captain fought the wheel. "Only a mad man would turn aside in a high sea. We'd capsize."

"High sea. Heavy sea." Peyton's eyes glistened at Megan. "Then we've nothing to worry about. That slim bow of hers will never handle full sail in this kind of sea."

"So it's said," sneered the captain, calling for more sail and wheeling The Imperia into the rumbling overcast.

A nasty smirk twisted across Peyton's lips and he strode to Megan's side. "Give me your knife, Toombs. I've need to spur her lover on."

"Drive that ship right under, he will," cackled Toombs as he handed over his blade.

"What say you, m'dear?" Peyton murmured against her temple, the long blade sliding under the rope holding up her oversized breeches. "Is he near enough to see?"

With a quick jerk, the blade severed the rope at her waist. The breeches dropped around her ankles and the oversized shirt flapped down about her knees. Megan shivered, but not because the wind kicked up another notch.

Within seconds, The Princess' square topgallant snapped full with breath. The trailing ship rose with the wind. Megan held her breath. Would the added wind send them diving into the squalls, would it drive The Princess under with her valiant crew?

But she fell off, dropping gently over the waves.

"She ain't driving under," growled the pirate captain.

Toombs staggered to the larboard rail. "They're coming straight at us."

"They mean to ram us," shouted the captain.

"God's Blood!" gasped Toombs.

"Madness," whispered Peyton on an astonished breath.

"That's something you'd know about, Peyton," Megan muttered, knowing neither ship could survive a keel to keel collision.

"He wouldn't," sniffed Peyton, regaining some of his composure. "Not with his whore on the quarterdeck!"

But Mme. du Lac's auburn tressed figurehead pointed her Celtic cross dead center of The Imperia's stern. The wind slashed across the deck, tearing the tears from Megan's eyes as she sought out Royce at the wheel on the quarterdeck of The Princess. Their eyes met. She mouthed the words she should have spoken to him when she had the chance. "I love you."

The seductively draped Desiré loomed between them. Whether he'd gotten her message, she didn't know. She might never know.

"Prepare for impact," the captain bellowed.

Megan sank as close to the deck as her bound arms would allow and closed her eyes. A thunderous crack filled her ears, her eyelids turned blood red before her eyes, and her skin tingled as though she'd been pricked with a thousand pins.

Then the deck beneath her shuddered. Her body jerked forward and the ropes ripped into her wrists. The odor of sulfur seared her nose. Blindly, her feet searched for a foothold, but the deck wasn't where it should be.

She opened her eyes. She blinked against the spots that seemed burned into her vision, blinked through a curtain of trailing rope and tattered sail. Black water boiled at an angle odd to the ship's rail. How could the sea be on its side? Slowly, her befuddled mind registered that the ship and not the sea had tipped.

The hair at the nape of her neck stood on end. Jagged light scarred the dark sky and lit the inky sea. More than one man floundered among the waves and debris. She recognized only Jubal Toombs' horror stricken face before it slipped forever from sight.

The Imperia's untended wheel spun to and fro. A spar slanted down across the quarterdeck, one end hung up by a tangle of ropes. The broadarm off the mast she presumed. But, where the aft mast had stood, now only a ragged splintering of raw wood protruded from the lopsided deck.

How had she survived? Had anyone else? Had the other ship?

Amidst a shuddering crack of timbers, The Imperia lurched. A bulkhead giving way, no doubt. The schooner's belly was fast filling with water. The cries of frightened men, the curses of fighting men, and the prayerful murmuring of the repentant filled her ears. Before her, a flap of fallen sail lifted with the wind, lifted from the slashing blade of Jubal Toombs' over-sized knife in Peyton Lyttle's hand.

His shoulders and head were framed in the cutout of canvas. His meticulous wig drooped to one side, exposing the thinning hair of an aging man. His flesh waxed paler than the powder with which he'd whitened it. His lips pulled back across his teeth and released a stream of bright red blood. Peyton Lyttle was alive but skewered by a splinter of spar the size of a man's arm.

She turned her face aside. She would not die with his image the last she saw. He'd already caused her and her family too much suffering. Yet, when she prayed, she asked for deliverance of his soul as well as her own.

Grappling hooks slapped over the rails to the fore of the ship, skittering and jumping across The Imperia's wreckage before catching. The bow of The Sea Princess loomed out of the darkness at Megan's shoulder and the ropes twanged taut, making the boards of two ships groan and creak.

From the broad reaching yardarm of The Princess' foremast, a man swung from a rope, his blousing white shirt a beacon against the leaden sky. Royce landed within feet of her.

Tears poured down Megan's cheeks. "I love you, Royce," she cried out as he scrambled to her, grateful to have the chance to say what pride and fear of betrayal had kept her from voicing.

"I love you," she repeated again and again as he sawed the blade of a knife at the knots of the rope restraining her.

"I love you, too, Princess," he murmured absently, freeing one of her hands. "Move your fingers. Work the feeling back into them."

She laughed and gave him a one armed hug. "I've been so foolish."

He cut her second hand free, lashed her against himself, and shouted above the thunderous crack of collapsing decks, "And it took only a lightning bolt to make you see the truth!"

"Not a lightning bolt," she shouted happily as they swung toward the deck of the ship she'd built and he'd captained. "Love."

EPILOGUE

A tropical breeze wafted across the quarterdeck of The Sea Princess and ruffled Megan's hair back from her face. She loved the salty taste of the sea on her lips and the heave of a deck beneath her feet. She loved them almost as much as she loved building sleek schooners that could outrun any pirateer afloat. And she loved designing ships almost as much as she loved Royce Devlin, the daughter their past year of marriage had produced, and the son of their first. She clamped her hands down on the shoulders of the four-year-old climbing the ship's rail in front of her.

"Is that grandmother's island?" Adam Shea Devlin asked, pointing a grubby finger at an emerald bump of land rising from the turquoise sea.

"Aye."

His rust-brown eyes twinkled up at her and he grinned the kind of smile that spelled trouble. "Allez descendre la planche!"

She smoothed a russet hank of hair back from his broad brow and shot a chastising glance over her shoulder at Royce. "Walk the plank? What sort of things have you been teaching him now...and after your mother was so generous as to give us The Princess as a wedding gift?"

Royce grinned over the small bundle he cradled high against his chest. A tiny hand scrabbled at his lower lip. "Just a few phrases of French for when he meets his grandmere."

"Hardly the way to make peace with your mother," she clucked, hitching an eyebrow at her errant husband.

His eyes twinkled with a mischief that matched their son's. Adam ducked out from under her hands, scampered over to his father, and stretched out his arms. "Up, Papa. Up."

Megan took baby Margaret from Royce, admonishing, "Before you corrupt our daughter, as well."

Royce's grin widened and he swung their son onto his shoulders. A knot of pride swelled in Megan's throat. Royce had cleared himself of the charges for which he'd been imprisoned. He'd reestablished her father's shipping business and turned ruined tobacco fields into grazing land for what promised to be the finest horseflesh in Virginia. But best of all, he fathered their children with the same open handed love with which her father had raised her.

She bowed her head and cooed against the dark wisps of her daughter's hair, not wanting to let Royce see the tears gathering in her eyes. Even though they were happy ones.

His arms slid around her waist and he nuzzled the back of her ear. "Getting weepy on me again, Princess?"

"Sentimental," she managed to get out.

"You're entitled. It's been almost five years since Jaisy and Dunn shipped off to the Caribbean. It'll be good to see them."

"And your homeland?" she asked over her shoulder. "Your brother? Your mother?"

Royce sighed, a more reconciled sound than those he'd made at the start of their trip; and she felt the grin stretching the lips he brushed against her temple. "What I don't endure in the name of love."

Megan McCall Devlin hugged her daughter close, leaned back against her husband, and tugged on her son's dangling foot. Everything would work out with Royce's family...just as it had worked out for her and Royce. And all because of love.

The End

To learn about other books Awe-Struck publishes, go to the Awe-Struck E-Books website at http://www.awe-struck.net/

Table Of Contents