The Pirate's Duty (Regent's Revenge #3)(33)

Oriana’s breath caught. She glanced down at her robe-clad body and wiggled her bare toes, which were peeking out beneath her hem. “Oh! And a gentleman wouldn’t explain the right and wrong of it.”

Mortified, she turned to leave, but he reached out and caught her by the arm. She glanced down at his hand and then up into his eyes.

“Don’t go.” His voice flowed over her like honey. “Please stay.”

“You’ve insulted me.” Her heart was pounding, the beat rising like a parade of drummers marching ever nearer. Fear gripped her as a nervous sigh escaped her lips. “Why should I?”

“Can you not see that I jest, Miss?” He studied her in the firelight as if he could ferret out all her secrets, then gave her a roguish grin. “Stay. Name your pleasure.”

The air between them vibrated with awareness.

“Tell me one thing,” she said.

“Anything.” He smiled wryly. “Ask and you shall receive.”

A shiver swept through her. She ached to be touched by him, held, kissed, but she dared not voice such things. She wasn’t a wanton. But saints alive, her body quivered as she glanced up and locked her gaze with his. Her heart beat as erratic as a summer storm, making her feel weightless and sinful as wicked sensations coursed over her.

“Ye . . . asked about my family,” she finally said, licking her lips to ease the thickening tension she felt growing between them. “Are your parents still alive?”

“Aye.” His eyes darkened as if something caused him great pain. “But I am . . . dead to them.”

She searched his face, trying to understand what he meant. He was here, with her, and quite alive. What wasn’t he telling her?

“Ye appear to be healthy as a horse to me.”

The devil! Now he would think she’d taken stock of him!

She cringed. “I mean to say, what would make them think somethin’ so dreadful?”

His silence made her stew. Who could be worse than the Thorpes? Surely his family would want to know if he was alive or dead. Orphans at Mrs. Pickering’s school would do anything for a chance to see their parents again, just as Oriana wished to see her mother. But they would not get that chance. John could, however.

“Allowing bitterness to control your heart is truly reprehensible,” she said simply. “How long has it been since ye have seen your parents?”

His somber smile filled her with a cloying panic. “A year.”

“That long?” She stared back at him with surprise. Surely something could be done to remedy his situation. “Ye should contact your mother and father as soon as pilchard season is over.”

His gaze searched hers as he removed the tankard from her hand and threaded his fingers through hers, rubbing her knuckles in scintillating circles. “Impossible.”

John’s touch triggered unbidden sensations in her belly that conflicted with her yearning to set his family’s conflict to rights, tying her up in knots. She tore her hand from his. “Nothing is ever hopeless.”

Unless your brother wants ye dead . . .

“And yet nothing can be done,” he said.

The horrifying truth robbed her of breath.

Love carried with it a destructive force. John could not possibly have more to lose than she did. Nothing mattered but love. Sharing it. Experiencing it. If he had the chance to make things right, he should. It was too late for her and her brother.

A sense of urgency filled Oriana, and she reached up to stroke John’s cheek with the tip of her finger. “Surely ye can make amends—”

“Amends?” He furrowed his brows. “Lovely landlady, how blind you are. My soul is black. It’s too late for me.”

His cold declaration swept over her like freezing rain. Didn’t he know it was never too late to make good in the lives of others? She gazed into his troubled eyes, holding on to hope that John wouldn’t give up on his family the way she’d been forced to give up on hers. “It’s never too late to love.”

He closed his eyes briefly and then reopened them. “You speak of matters beyond your grasp.”

“Do I?” She’d experienced enough pain that she could see it in others, even if they tried to hide it. “I would give anything for more time with my mother, even if it was just one day.”

“And your father? Brothers and sisters?” His jaw visibly tightened, the muscles working.

She blinked, instantly sobered, and dropped her hand. “I told ye, I am alone. No one in this world has a claim on me.”

“Have I wounded you?” he asked, his voice lowering to a purr as he reached for her again.

“Nay.” She stepped away, hating that she’d become the thing she despised above all else—a liar.

The men in her life had done nothing but hurt others for their personal gain. It would break her to admit aloud that she’d be forced to kneel before her own brother, swear allegiance to him, and beg him for forgiveness, for her own life in order to regain his goodwill. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—do it. She wouldn’t sacrifice her mortal soul for anyone or anything. If she had to lie, so be it.

“My kin are gone.” Despising her vulnerability, she lowered her eyes to his chest so he couldn’t see the despair threatening to overpower her. Chills crept down her spine as thoughts of her own tainted childhood came flooding back. “Ye cannot know how much I envy the chance ye have to make things right.”