Home > The Princess Stakes(11)

The Princess Stakes(11)
Author: Amalie Howard

   “You have yet to explain why you’re here and whether I need to feed your earl to the sharks.”

   “I have…no husband.” She sucked in a breath. “I’m here with my maid, and you’ve met Tej.”

   Rhystan blinked, his thoughts momentarily derailed. No husband? If she went by Lady Lockhart, did that mean she was a widow? He frowned. There’d only been a handful of titled English peers in Joor—a few earls and barons—but he hadn’t cared to make their acquaintance or learn their names. No, the only obsession that had consumed him stood not a foot in front of him.

   “Where is he then?” he asked and wanted to kick himself.

   “Why does it matter?” Sarani—no, Sara—answered. It would be best for him to get used to thinking of her as that. A stranger. One who had conspired to wheedle her way aboard. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. She was a master of artifice. He should know—she’d claimed to love him and then left him in the space of two days.

   “You’re right, it doesn’t.” Rhystan took another draught. “How did you get on my ship?”

   “Tej paid two of your new crew to take their place.”

   His eyes narrowed. “Take their place?”

   “You hired new men. We offered them more.”

   Rhystan couldn’t control the rise of fury. The sheer arrogance of her. Buying off his crew? A logical voice in his head reminded him that they weren’t truly his men, merely deckhand replacements he’d employed in Bombay, but he was too angry to listen. Shoving off the desk with a force that nearly broke it from its moorings on the floor, he strode to the door, grabbing his discarded shirt at the foot of the bed and yanking it over his head.

   “Sorry to disappoint you, Princess, but I won’t stand for it. I am turning this damned ship around.”

   “I can pay you.” Her voice shook. “Whatever you want.”

   He halted, his shoulders stilling, and turned to rake her person with a contemptuous gaze. “You have nothing on this earth to offer, Lady Lockhart. Nothing I would ever desire in this entire fucking lifetime.”

   * * *

   Sarani pressed a hand to her throat, feeling her fluttering pulse as the door crashed into its frame. That could have gone worse. She was still in one piece. For now.

   She’d never expected to cross paths with him, not in a thousand years.

   This duke was nothing like the boy she’d known. Apart from the physical likeness, that laughing, earnest boy no longer existed. In his place was a rugged, hardened man who had no soft edges, no compassion whatsoever. And no laughter in sight.

   He’d grown taller, if that were even possible, towering above her, and he’d broadened, too. Significantly. Five years ago, she’d seen him without a shirt and the view had been incredible. The view now was brain-melting. His physique was sculpted to warrior-like perfection by what she guessed would have been years of hard labor on his ships, and his skin had been baked to a mouth-watering hue by the sun. But the biggest change was in his eyes. Those stormy ocean eyes had been unreadable. They’d become hard and unfeeling.

   Unforgiving.

   She was in dangerous territory.

   His awful letter five years ago had been clear in his opinion of her, and Sarani had no doubt in her mind that he reviled her with a fire that still simmered under his skin. The missive had been laced with hurt, which she had understood, but the cruel intent had struck hard. It had delivered the bitter words of a cold, contemptuous stranger.

   The man she saw now.

   Sarani shivered, rubbing her own clammy, chilled flesh. Half expecting to see the captain’s lumbering form lurking outside the cabin, she scooted to the next door and darted in. Asha was no longer asleep but unpacking their sparse belongings.

   Her gaze fell on Sarani’s pinched face. “Are you well, Princess?”

   “Yes.” She huffed a scattered breath. “It’s Lady Lockhart from now on, remember.” The address made her heart clench. Though it had been her mother’s name, it wasn’t surprising by any stretch that Rhystan had assumed it was the title of the earl she’d married. That had been clear from the way he’d spat it out like a mouthful of poison. “Try to get some sleep. It’s still early yet. You can finish that in the morning.”

   Asha rubbed her eyes and nodded. “Will you not sleep?” she asked when Sarani moved back to the door.

   “As if I could,” she muttered and then forced a reassuring smile. “I need to speak to the captain.”

   “The captain?” Asha’s eyes widened with fear.

   She nodded. “He knows we are here.”

   Somehow she would have to convince Rhystan to help and not to turn the ship around. He hated her, that much was clear. But in most cases, love and hate were inexplicably twined emotions. The greater the love, the greater the hate. Perhaps love was stretching it, though Rhystan had had tender feelings for her in the past. Maybe those weren’t all gone.

   Or maybe she had skeins of wool in her brain.

   Who are you fooling? The man loathes the air you breathe.

   Just five years ago, loathing had been the opposite of his feelings. He’d adored her, his eyes alight with so much affection. Sarani forced herself to keep from being caught up in the images of a different, younger, less jaded Rhystan that filled her desperate brain.

   She would do well to remember that that boy no longer existed. And the man in his place was a cold, hard, cynical brute who had an ax to sharpen at the grindstone. Regardless, she had to convince him somehow.

   At any cost, even her morals.

   She made to leave just as the cabin door crashed open and Asha cried out with a shriek, burying her head beneath the thin woolen blanket. Sarani’s heart slammed into her throat at the looming sight of the windblown captain crowding the doorway. Anger and frustration brimmed in his eyes, and a part of her wanted to join her maid in cowering under the covers.

   “Don’t worry, Asha,” Sarani soothed the girl. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” With a glare, she walked to where the silent, seething duke was waiting, his harsh features unreadable. “Was that necessary? You scared her half to death.”

   “My ship, my rules, my doors.”

   “Your poor temper, too, clearly,” she shot back.

   His mouth tightened. Sparing the maid the obvious confrontation, Sarani followed him into the narrow corridor, crowded by his bulk. Another even larger man with a shaved head waited at one end, blocking the way. She blinked. Did Rhystan think she would run? Flee overboard?

   A sudden heave of the ship had her careening toward him, and rough hands reached out to steady her. She felt the leashed strength in his fingers, smelled the sea on his clothes, and forced herself to look up. His lips were flat, those steely eyes guarded. Neither of them spoke, a thousand hours of raw memory ricocheting between them.

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