LITMIR.BIZ

      Michel lay in the hammock, cleaning one of his pistols and listening to the doleful ballad of lost loves and thwarted dreams sung by one of the Swan’s crewmen on the deck above. Michel sighed. He could sympathize all too well with whoever had written that ballad. His own love wasn’t exactly lost—she was lying soundly asleep in the bunk not three feet away from him, her hair tousled about her face and one arm thrown back enticingly behind her head—but she wasn’t exactly his, either.

      This last week together with Jerusa had been both the best and the worst of his life. She had rarely left his sight, day or night, and with so much time together, he’d come to appreciate her as a companion as well as a woman. Which was, he thought wryly, just as well, since companionship was all he and Jerusa were destined to share.

      Idly he kicked his foot against the bulkhead, rocking the hammock in time with the song. The hammock was one of the precautions he’d taken against being tempted again, and, even so, he’d been sorely tried by being able to hear Jerusa’s soft little sighs as she slept in the bunk across from him. Sacristi, he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman, but to give in to his desires would be the worst possible thing he could do for them both.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      “Eight bells, chérie. The sun’s high in the sky.” Even

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