Chapter 20 #3
“Perhaps it was pride,” she ventured, “or perhaps it was the confidence imperative to strong leadership. My knowledge of sea battles is, admittedly, very thin, but is ‘surrender at first engagement’ ever the correct order? Don’t most men put on the defensive first and give it a go?”
Bannock was shaking his head. “Perhaps. Maybe. I don’t know. We’ll never know, and my crew will never be recovered. It is
easier if there is someone to blame. I am an easy culprit because I am the only one left.”
“And so in your dream, you wrestle with . . . yourself? With your call to arms? In your nightmare, you shouted the word No, and even Please again and again. It was as if—”
“Did I?” he cut in. He wouldn’t look at her. He was abashed—stupid man.
She stared at his profile. A muscle worked in his jaw. His hair was tousled, hanging over his forehead. His posture was defeated,
but his bare chest and arms appeared no less powerful. She wanted to reach across the bed and touch him. She wanted to pull
him against her. But he’d drawn away so purposefully. He did not want to be comforted by her. She must not be deceived, he
had never wanted anything from her but leverage against his enemy.
“The nightmares are,” he continued, “a relentless, moving mural of the methods used by the French captain to kill my crew. Battle is, by nature, vicious and deadly—inhuman, really—and battle at sea is the worst sort. It involves hand-to-hand combat on the small and ever-shifting deck of a boat. There is rain, wind, fog, and, of course, the sea, waiting to swallow you up. We were prepared for this; at the very least, we were resigned to it. We’d seen combat before; it’s a constant threat when you sail.
The event for which we were unprepared—which surely no one could prepare—was the torture and systematic drownings.
There are rules of engagement, especially in a battle between Navy vessels, flying the colors of known world powers.
We were sailing as privateers, not a ship of the line, but we were under orders from the Admiralty, with a detachment of uniformed Royal Marines and their lieutenant on board.
And even if we hadn’t been—even if we’d been bloody pirates—Surcouf’s methods were barbaric.
And,” an exhale, “that is what comes to me in these dreams.”
“Will you say it?”
He gave her a hard look. “No, I will not say it. May you live out your days without having to know the things men do to each
other in the name of war.”
“Oh,” she said. “I see. More regulating of what I should or should not be told. If given the choice—which has yet to happen—I
should like to be the one to decide what I hear or what I am spared.”
“This is not the same as discussing the betrothal with you, Danielle.”
“It is information concealed,” she countered.
He stared at her. He shook his head. “No.”
She tried again. “You are my husband, awakening me in the night with tortured screams. I have asked to know something, and
you have said no, I’m not to be told. I suppose the one difference is you’re not making up some lie about it. As far as I
know. Is this progress? Or more of the same?”
“What good is it to impose these memories on you?” he asked tersely.
“So that you might more easily bear them,” she shot back.
“One way to protect someone from pain is to keep the pain hidden—I’ll grant you that.
But another way is to share the burden with someone else.
Remember when I explained to you the slow-bleed death of Ivy Hill?
How the quarry in Maidstone aimed to blot out the town?
It was a sort of relief to tell you about it.
Even if you could do nothing to help—and I know, I know.
You’ve set me up in this mansion so that I might hire half the town, but I had no notion of that when I told you about it.
You asked, and I explained it, and it felt as if the burden of safeguarding my neighbors and my community was .
. . was less. If even for five minutes.”
He dug his hands in his hair and dropped his head.
“In hindsight,” she said, “you didn’t ask about Ivy Hill out of curiosity. You didn’t care—not really. You were simply chatting
me up so you could race me down the aisle. I know that now—but I didn’t at the time. I thought you . . .” She took a deep
breath. “I thought you wanted to know about my life. And I was glad for it. At the time.”
“I did want to know about you,” he corrected. “At first glance—from the moment I saw you. I didn’t want to want this—to want you. You were meant to be petulant and terrible and French. You were never meant to be clever, or interesting, or alluring, but
I couldn’t look away. I could no sooner not hear of your plans for Ivy Hill, or Eastwell Park, or the parish hall, than stop breathing.”
She laughed, a bitter scoffing sound.
“Oh yes, laugh at my helplessness in the face of someone so articulate and full of life and . . . bloody . . . radiant that you made me forget my pain, Danielle. What was I to do but listen to you? And stare at you? I was so incredibly out
of my depth. You speak of lessening your burden?
For the first time since the attack, I was able to think of something other than death, and revenge, and how in God’s name I might recover Linus.
Instead, I allowed myself to be captivated by you.
I felt guilty for indulging in the irresistible distraction, I felt like a bloody traitor to my crew, to Linus who is, even now, as I sit in a bed next to the most beautiful woman I’ve ever encountered, rotting in a dungeon, but God help me, I’ve not been able to stop. ”
Dani held his gaze, heart pounding, his words swirling in her head like a cool wind. She could turn her face to it and allow
it to carry her away; or she could turn her back to it and run.
“Well, then,” she said, “you do know about sharing a burden. So now you may tell me about the dreams.”
“No.”
“Yes.” Her braid rested on her shoulder and she snatched it up, playing with the end.
“No.”
She laughed. “Yes.”
He closed his eyes. He exhaled. He opened them. He said, “My crew was keelhauled. One at the time. While I watched—while every
man watched until it was his turn.”
“Keelhauled?”
“Yes. Do you know what that means?” His voice was loud and hard.
She dropped her hair. She shook her head.
“It is a barbaric and, I’d thought, long-retired form of torture at sea. Surcouf bound each man at wrist and ankle and tethered
them with a long rope. Then he pitched them into the sea under full sail, dragging their body against the boat until they
drowned; but not before the barnacles on the hull of the ship cut their skin to ribbons; not until their bones and skull were
bashed. That is what he did, man by man. My friends since boyhood, many of them. Waiting their turns for certain, terrible death. Meeting
it with grim, defiant courage. That is what I see when I dream.
And I shout and wail because of how very terrible it is—it was.
So. Now you’ve heard it. I’m a blaggard for introducing this horror to your young and innocent mind—but you asked for this, didn’t you?
Why this is the honesty you called out, I have no idea. ”
“Just to be clear,” she said, “I have called out every honesty. This is the one you’ve consented to share.”
“Fair point. I did say I was a blaggard.”
“But how did you survive? As captain, did they not bind you, did they not toss you overboard?”
“Of course. I was second to last to go, so that I might bear witness to the drowning of my crew.”
“But how did you escape it?”
He shrugged. “I had a blade secreted in my sleeve, between my wrists. By the time I was pitched overboard, I’d sliced the bindings at my hands to only a thread.
When I hit the water, the only thing left to do was separate my ankles and climb the main line that tethered me to the boat.
When I was close enough, I caught hold of the bowsprit and held fast. They assumed I had drowned and so they moved on to the last man, who was Fernsby.
When he was thrown, I dove to cut him loose.
Then I fought the waves, straining to see that Surcouf did not give the same treatment to Linus.
When it was clear he would not—God knows why—I stopped swimming and gave myself over to the storm.
My only goal was to hold fast to Fernsby and keep our heads above water.
When Surcouf’s lugger sailed away, I made an informal bet with the viscount’s unconscious form: How many minutes can we stay alive?
Minutes turned into hours, hours turned to morning.
A day and a half later, we were discovered.
We were saved. I was lauded a hero. I was awarded a princess so I could go after the French captain who calls himself an officer and a gentleman, but who is, in fact, a sadist. I could go after Linus and bring him home.
And that, in case it’s not perfectly clear, was the only thing on my mind when I reached Ivy Hill and encountered you. At which time—meaning,
the moment my defeated carcass clapped eyes on you—my revenge plot and recovery mission was shot to hell.”
“Am I meant to apologize here?” she asked.
“Of course not. You are innocent. My crew was innocent. Linus Welty is innocent. Everyone is innocent except Vincent bloody
Surcouf and myself.”
He ran a hand over his mouth. His breath came in heavy gulps and his brow was wet with perspiration. He wouldn’t look at her.
He shoved from the bed and stalked around it, coming to the side closest to her. He looked into her eyes, his expression painful,
his breathing hard.
“There, I’ve said it,” he proclaimed bitterly. “And now, you have to go. You’ve awakened me from a night terror, you’ve compelled
me to reveal my most horrible memory. I’m mortified, and there’s nothing left to say. Our discussion is over. I regret it
already—one of an unrelenting pile of regrets when it comes to you. In the morning, I’ll leave here. We needn’t hash out anything
more than the eventual annulment and the management of the house. Get up.” He held out his hand.
Danielle looked at it. She raised her eyes to his. Was he serious?
“Up,” he said. He raised his eyebrows.
Slowly, Dani shook her head.
“Danielle,” he warned.
Heart pounding, her mind a swirl of doubts and hopes and recriminations, she shook her head again. It was the smallest, little
half revolution, back and forth, her eyes not leaving his.
Swearing under his breath, he grabbed her right hand and tugged. She slid from the covers like a leaf in a stream and landed solidly on two feet before him, her chemise swinging out.
“The dream is over,” he assured her. “Please go and try to sleep.” He pulled again on her hand. She did not budge.
He made a growling noise. He pulled a third time. Danielle stood her ground, feet planted—but she allowed her body to tip.
She fell against him in a splash of fabric. He absorbed the contact with an agonized sound of frustration. She caught him
around the waist, clasping the top of his breeches. For a long moment, they leaned together, breathing in and out. She felt
his chest hair on her cheek; she heard his pounding heart. Slowly, she raised her chin. They locked eyes. She licked her lips.
“This is not what you want,” he rasped, staring at her mouth.
“Do not ever again tell me what I do or do not want,” she said softly.
“Danielle,” he warned.
“Bannock,” she replied.
“Say it, then,” he growled. “Tell me.”
Dani swallowed. She didn’t know what she wanted. She’d learned too much, too quickly. However, she knew what she didn’t want.
“I don’t want to leave your bed,” she said.
“You don—”
She let out a frustrated cry and gave the waist of his breeches a jerk, yanking him to her. She dropped her face against his
chest.
Bannock swore. With one hand, he palmed her bottom; with the other, he grabbed her braid and tugged. When her face went up,
he descended on her mouth.