Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel) - By Shelly Thacker Page 0,90
to tell you.”
He shifted his weight and looked down at her, smiling, glad for a distraction from his bewildering thoughts. “Yes?” He wondered if there was something else about her past she wanted to share.
Sitting up, she reached for her yellow silk gown—only to have it fall apart in her fingers. She blushed profusely. There wasn’t much left of it.
“Sorry about that.” With a grin that betrayed his lack of remorse, Nicholas handed her his new shirt. Her new clothes were out of reach under one of the other trees. “You were saying?”
She slid her arms into the sleeves. “Well, when we were in the cave, during your fever...” She paused while he helped with the buttons. “You... were delirious for a while, and you... said some things.”
His fingers froze. He felt as if a load of lead ballast had just been dropped on his head. “Things?”
She covered his hand with hers, looking at him with concern in her eyes. “About how you came to have the brand.”
He stared at her, mute, horrified.
“It’s all right,” she said quickly. “You talked about how you... you saw your father hanged. And the prison hulk, and a man with the branding iron. You said the name Wakefield.”
Nicholas remained utterly still, his every nerve ending on edge. He didn’t confirm or deny the truth of what he’d apparently let slip. “What else did I say?”
“That was all.” She threaded her fingers through his, smiling. “It’s all right. I understand.”
“You understand?” he repeated on a dry throat.
“Yes. You were thrown in gaol for a crime your father committed. It wasn’t your fault.” Her eyes held compassion... and curiosity. “And I think I can guess the rest.”
He withdrew his hand from her touch, feeling as if he were suddenly, entirely made of ice. “Can you really?”
“I don’t think you’re a planter.”
A riot of curses tumbled through his head. But he had no voice.
“You fight as if you’re used to fighting,” she continued. “And you tell directions nautically. You’ve always checked which way we’re going by looking at the stars. You haven’t been finding our way, you’ve been navigating it. Then there’s the way you work with rope—those knots you used to secure the fishing creel. And the brand... and your scars. It looks like you’ve been flogged.”
He felt as if he were splintering into painful glass shards.
“I’d say you’re a seafaring man,” she said triumphantly. “Perhaps an officer in the navy? You’re certainly no planter. Or if you are now, you haven’t always been. And you wouldn’t be an ordinary seaman. You’re too used to giving orders and having them obeyed.” Smiling, she reached out, caressing his bearded cheek with her fingertips. “Won’t you tell me the truth... Captain?”
Chapter 19
“No.”
His curt reply seemed to take her completely by surprise. She stared at him in confusion, the warmth slowly melting from her expression. “But—”
“No,” he repeated more forcefully. “No, I don’t care to tell you the truth. Do I need to make it any clearer for you?” He untangled himself from her, stood up, wanted to walk away.
And hated that he couldn’t. The chain pulled taut before he moved two paces.
He couldn’t move. Trapped, he went still, left with no outlet for the anger coursing through him, the disbelief. He had told her. Damn him, he had told her about his past—not all of it, but far too much. He stood in the shadows, breathing hard, unable to even look at her.
What a tale she had spun from the few strands that she knew! Hellfire and damnation. She thought he was some kind of bloody naval hero? Him?
She thought he was the innocent one, that his father had been guilty of a terrible crime?
She was so naive, so eager to believe the best about him—when the truth was completely the opposite.
The truth was that his father had been an innocent man wrongly accused.
While he, Nicholas Brogan, had committed terrible crimes that could never be forgiven—had spent fourteen years in a mindless quest for vengeance. Spilled an ocean of blood. Heedlessly hacked down whoever stood between him and his quarry.
Including a child. He had taken the life of a child.
He shut his eyes, clenching his fists, choked by guilt. How would that compare to her image of him as some kind of noble navy captain?
He didn’t have to guess. He knew that a woman as gentle and innocent as Samantha would never be able to forgive such a senseless act of violence.