The Captain of All Pleasures (Sutherland Brothers #1)(32)
Author: Kresley Cole

“Oooh, get out!” She threw a silken pillow that he easily dodged and didn’t notice when her shirt gaped open even wider. “You have no right to be in here. This is private! If you came here to cart me away, you’ll soon realize that won’t be happening.”

He might not have come here expressly for that purpose, but carrying her away was exactly what he’d been thinking of. For her to presume so His half-smile was replaced by a sneer. “Don’t flatter yourself, princess—I did not come here for you.”

She blinked up at him, and he could swear he read a look of regret in her eyes before she turned to the bewildered woman. “Sasha, please go get Berto and see that this man is dragged out of here. Violently!”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” Maria said as she swept past Derek into the room, her silks and exotic scent trailing delicately behind her. At a nod from her, Sasha quitted the room, and Maria continued to them, “We’ll have to come to some kind of agreement until he decides to leave. You are my little bella, but he is a good customer,” she said as she pinned Derek with a pointed look.

He nearly flushed. To change the subject, he said, “Maria, I would like an explanation as to why Jason Lassiter’s daughter is in this place. Now.”

“This place? You make it sound awful. Though you certainly never complained before.”

It riled him to see Nicole trying not to smile at Maria’s set-down.

“An answer!”

Maria replied in a casually conversational tone, “She is a daughter to me.”

Maria looked at Sutherland’s dropped jaw and bit back a laugh. This was going to be too much fun.

“Daughter to you?” he managed.

“Yes, I have known her for fifteen years.” She paused before she asked, “How long have you known her?”

Sutherland gave her a tight, impatient look. “How do you know her?”

Maria looked to Nicole in question. Nicole responded, “I don’t care.”

Still Maria hesitated. It was only partly her story to tell. Plus, she doubted she could conceal her feelings for Jason if she spoke of him. But what did it matter? Nicole knew. It seemed as if everyone knew. Except Jason.

And Maria sensed Nicole wouldn’t mind Sutherland learning more about her. Reluctantly, she began, “I was reading here one night when a messenger brought me an urgent request. An American captain was losing his wife in childbirth.”

She paused and swallowed. “No one, not even the one doctor here, would help them because a couple of cases of yellow fever had come in on an American ship the week before. I was afraid as well, but the thought of some poor woman Well, I had no nursing skills, but in my business I’ve certainly helped birth a number of children. It was what the American thought when he sent for me.”

Maria encountered the familiar sadness as she continued, “When I arrived at the ship, the screams echoed along what would have been silent docks. I hurried on, but when I saw the woman, I knew it was too late. She’d lost far too much blood. Jason Lassiter, of course, was the captain. I’d never seen a human being who was so beside himself in misery.” Her voice had lowered to a whisper.

Moving to Nicole’s side, she looked down at the girl she had come to love as a daughter and smoothed a curl behind her ear. In a stronger voice, she resumed, “He didn’t care that I was a madam. All he cared about was his young wife. We struggled all night, and finally a baby girl was born. But they were too weak and within the hour both had passed away.”

She paused when she saw Nicole’s watering eyes. Sutherland saw, too, but he looked surprised, as though grasping how little he understood about Nicole and possibly Jason. Dragging his eyes back to Maria, he commanded, “Continue.” She only raised her eyebrows at him until he reluctantly added, “Please.”

“Jason became inconsolable.” She recalled that fateful night so well, it was as if she could still hear him yelling, weeping, smashing anything within reach. “None of his crew could restrain him.”

She absently stroked Nicole’s shining hair. “My heart hurt for them, the little mother so brave and the husband so in love. I began making arrangements for her and her baby’s burial. Just when I was about to leave, Nicole, such a beautiful child, ran after me. She was terrified and crying, and when I picked her up and quieted her, she clung to me as if she’d never let go. I told a crewman I was taking her and bullied him until he let us go. She fell asleep in my arms that night, and I have loved her since.”

Sutherland paused, seeming to digest all she’d told him, but then a muscle pulsed in his jaw. “This visit’s over,” he said abruptly as he strode over to Nicole and grabbed her arm. “You’re coming with me back to the ship.”

“Maria!” Nicole called, trying to twist away.

“Anything you have to say to Nicole can be said here,” Maria said in an authoritative tone.

“Maria, please! You’re not allowing him to stay! This man hunted Chancey and me down in London, offering outrageous rewards—”

“You knew that, damn it?” He ran his free hand through his hair. “Why did you hide from me?”

“Why? Do you think I’m daft?” she asked, finally wrenching her arm out of his grasp. “You were out for revenge.”

“Is that what I was looking for?”

“What else could you want from me after that night?”

Maria watched the two interacting and knew what Nicole had just said angered Sutherland terribly. Surely if the man offered rewards for her after their brief acquaintance, he wanted more from her than that. Looking at her lovely Nicole and seeing the way the two sparked off each other, she didn’t see how he could be unaffected.

Yet instead of telling her that, he simply looked her over slowly. “Yes, that would be the only conclusion.”

Meu Deus, perhaps I made a mistake hoping for these two.

“Of course it is. See, Maria ” Nicole turned beseeching eyes toward her. “He wants to get me back for that night. You can’t let him.”

“She doesn’t have any say in the matter,” he snapped.

“Of course I do, Captain,” Maria countered. “If I call, guards will come here and stop you. Or you can be civilized and speak with her here. But I warn you, if you so much as raise your voice, you are out for good. Compreenda?”

He looked from her to Nicole, and finally gave a quick nod.

“Well, that’s just fine,” Nicole fumed. “He can choose to stay here, but I don’t have to. Let go of my damn arm, you beast.”

“You didn’t think I was a beast that night in my cabin .”

Maria studied them as they argued back and forth. She’d never known two people so right for each other.

Or two people so completely ignorant of that fact.

The coldness in the captain’s heart wouldn’t be able to withstand his unrelenting desire for Nicole. And he wouldn’t try to diminish her passion and fire because he craved it. Nicole, so full of impulse and mischief, needed the reassurance of strength of a iron-willed man. She also needed his dark sensuality to sate her.