Page 93 of The Duke With the Dragon Tattoo
“You’ve been everywhere, seen everything. You have nothing left to conquer. What will you live for then?”
His eyes swung to the window as he contemplated the storm that had calmed to a light, pattering rain. “I have seen everything,” he said tightly. “I’ve met every kind of man. There are those who would risk their lives to climb the highest mountain or find the source of the most treacherous fjord. They crawl over themselves to build the highest building. Or to mine the deepest cave. They crave power. Glory. Danger. Excitement. They seek to taunt death. To defy God. To dominate nature… And only that thing, that obsession, makes them feel alive.”
She contemplated him with as much intensity as he did the storm. “Do… any of those things make you feel alive?”
“Not even close.”
“Then… what does? What will?”
He looked at her then, almost as though she’d disappointed him. “How can you not know?”
The air between them crackled with the promise of something cataclysmic. The promise of a shift in their cosmos, a rotation of their fates.
“Did you love me?” The moment the words escaped her, she regretted them.
His eyes shifted away from her. “I was young. I hadn’t yet learned to fear the folly of a fool in love.”
The emotion that had threatened the entire night spilled over her lashes, and his thumb smoothed it away. “It’s too late for love, Lorelai. To me, love is no more than the construct of poets. As easily bought and discarded as trust or loyalty. But I understand possession.” He rose up to bring his face close to hers, so they were once again breathing the same air. “You are mine. That is what I know.”
“So… you don’t love me.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “I should have said it,” he lamented. “Back when I still had the ability to feel it. Back when I knew what fear was. What love was. I should have said I loved you before I rode away with Mortimer that day. It was there on the tip of my tongue. Right then, it wastherein my heart when I was young enough to have one.”
Hope permeated the pain of his words as he brushed his mouth against hers. If love had been there once before… maybe she could put it back.
“It doesn’t matter,” she soothed. “I love you.” She wrapped her arms around him, letting the covers fall away. She didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to see fear or guilt or rejection in his eyes. She pressed her heart to his heart, her lips to his lips, and this time, when he moved above her, she had the sense he’d be much more wicked.
CHAPTERTWENTY
Lorelai made space for Veronica as her sister-in-law joined her on the upper deck of the forecastle to watch the bustling below as they steamed toward the pier.
“I never thought I’d be so happy to see Southbourne Grove.” Veronica shielded her eyes with her hand and gazed over the branching tendrils of the estuary toward their home.
“I never thought I wouldn’t.” Lorelai shared none of Veronica’s enthusiasm, which surprised her. Since they’d left Ben More Castle earlier that morning, she’d fought a strange sense of impending doom.
It unsettled her even more that she seemed to be the only one.
The general morale on the ship could only be called jolly, if one ignored the furtive and untrusting feeling toward the new small contingent of Dorian Blackwell’s men. Still, the prospect of imminent treasure was to a pirate ship what the prospect of a ducal marriage was to an equally mercenary crew of matriarchs at Almack’s in its day.
Indeed, Lorelai had diverted herself greatly by watching the antics of eight little kittens roaming freely about the main deck, befriending a band of rough-and-tumble pirates. It caused her no end of amusement to observe a rather gigantic chap by the name of Cutthroat Bill set the little fluff ball on his shoulder for the entire afternoon and refer to his new companion as “Little Bill.”
Shifty Rodriguez, on the other hand, almost lost an eye when he’d been unaware that a tiny orange tabby had fallen asleep in his hat. He’d lifted it to put it on, and was rewarded with a jack-in-the-box pounce to his face that caused more apoplexy then actual damage.
He and the orange fellow seemed to have made peace, though, and he even put his hat back on the table where it had been should thegatitobe in need of anothersiesta.
Barnaby had taken to dragging a red tassel the size of a mouse at the end of a fishing twine from his belt as he paced the deck about his work. Any number of hunting kittens could be found stalking him, swiping at the lure with murderous enthusiasm.
By the time they reached the estuary, all the kittens had names and, it seemed, had been unofficially claimed by one pirate or another. If Lorelai had it correctly, there was Little Bill, Gatito, Katjie, Neko, Ikati, Bast, White Bastard, and Jim.
Lorelai initially thought each name had a story, but was disavowed of that notion when Barnaby mentioned that the more exotic names were simply variances of the wordcatin different languages.
Of course they were, she’d sighed to herself.
Men.
As they steamed closer to shore, Lorelai was struck again by the beauty of her home. A teeming flock of athousand starlings ascended in the distance, using the same wind to paint a dancing portrait in the rare blue sky.
The sea air was mild and sweet, and it tossed the strands that had come loose from Veronica’s braid across Lorelai’s shoulder.
