The mention of her father brought Nicole's attention back to where it should have been in the first place. Since she was fairly certain Sutherland had had nothing to do with her father's continued imprisonment or the ship sabotage, she would just tuck that memory of him way back in her heart and think of him no more. The next few months would be grueling enough as it was.
"We'll just have to brazen it out," Nicole said decisively. "That's what we'll do. Father is counting on both of us, even if he doesn't know it yet. I won't let a sod like Sutherland put me off course."
Lassiter's imprisonment lasted not one week more, but two. He'd been like a madman when he'd received Nicole's letter because he couldn't do a thing to stop her. Within minutes of his release he was in Mayfair, drumming on the doors at Atworth House.
Jason pushed past the aging butler and marched down to the salon. It was a place he'd always remember. In that room, Evelyn Banning had blamed him for her daughter's death. She'd called Nicole a savage. And she'd extracted a promise to return Nicole to this mausoleum when she was only twelve. It was the only promise he'd ever broken.
He froze in midstride as he was confronted with the huge portrait of Laurel above the fireplace. No, he'd broken one other promise. In that steamy night off the coast of Brazil, he'd told Laurel that she would live.
He couldn't save his wife, but he could damn well go after his daughter.
"Nicole has sailed on my ship in the Great Circle Race," Jason announced without preamble when he stood in front of her.
Evelyn didn't raise her coiffed head from her cross-stitching. "She told me she was returning to Paris or elsewhere on the Continent. Not sailing to Australia again."
"I need to go after her, and I don't have a ship within two weeks' sailing time of here." His throat tightened. "I...I need passage," he ground out.
At this, she lowered her work. "Honestly, Jason! Don't be so melodramatic. I'm angry, too, but there's nothing to be done for it now. She'll be back soon enough. Chit will miss much of the season, though." Then, in a dismissing tone, she added, "Keep me updated on her whereabouts."
"I don't think you understand me. She is in danger, and I need to go after her."
The dowager stood in a huff. "Ridiculous. After all the times you've written, assuring me how safe she was, how beneficial sailing was for the girl--don't go changing your tale on me." She turned to leave the room.
"I could make sure she was safe because I was with her," Jason said as he grasped her arm. She gave him a withering look, but he couldn't be deterred. "Damn it, I wanted to spare you the realities of this trip, but you leave me no choice. I've been investigating a series of strange accidents that have been afflicting several lines. I know that my ship was targeted because Nicole stumbled across a couple of cutthroats sabotaging it. She barely escaped with her life."
He continued over the woman's horrified gasp, "She'll travel through the fortieth parallel, known as the Roaring Forties, where some of the worst weather on earth manifests itself. Thirty-to sixty-foot rogue waves, large enough to swallow a ship of much more tonnage than mine, are not unheard of. The path where they are charted to sail has literally thousands of shipwrecks on the sea floor. And if I know Nicole, she'll probably even maneuver them into the Screaming Fifties, which are much, much--"
"I don't want to know!" The cross-stitching she'd been clutching dropped to the floor. "For God's sake, why have you taken her there in the past?" she cried in outrage.
"We never sailed the more extreme course. But Nicole came across her competition's planned route. It was next to suicidal. Now that she knows how far into the Forties he'll go, she'll sail even farther south."
"I do not believe this." She grasped the high collar at her throat with shaking fingers. "This is your fault. Again!"
Lassiter drew his eyebrows together in an agonized expression. "It's usually not so dangerous. And even now, I wouldn't overly worry about her because she's in capable hands. Hell, she is a capable hand. But before there was no doubt about our ship's integrity--now I don't know if those thugs could have been successful. It would be a deadly combination if they timed an accident to occur in the strongest tossing of the ship."
His look was beseeching. "I've got to get to my daughter, because if she hasn't already, she could soon know a living hell."
Chapter 11
T his is embarrassing," Nicole heard one of their midshipmen mumble from the deck.
What an understatement. Just hours ago, they'd lost their rudder, and the Bella Nicola had become completely incapacitated. Their beautiful, regal ship with its American flag pennants had been flailing around, out of control--a menace to the fishing vessels dotting the waters off the coast of Brazil.
After several hours, they'd managed to rig a makeshift rudder that would help them get closer to land and help. More important, they'd been able to get out of sight before the other gaining ships in the race had any chance to see them. Nicole knew it was shallow--but she would simply have to drown herself if Sutherland saw them like this.
She shook her hung head, only to cringe again when she looked up to the bow. They'd certainly found help.
The Bella Nicola was being towed by a fully stocked guano freighter.
Even in the turmoil of the Bay of Biscay's continuous storms, which Derek secretly believed was the best part of sailing, his mind had been constantly on Nicole. Evidently, she'd been spying on the competition. All of the competition, if he was part of some list.
Hell, he'd seen her studying his chart. And now that she'd learned how far south he planned to go, they'd try to beat it. He in turn would have to sail closer to the Antarctic than he'd ever anticipated.
When he found Nicole he would...bloody hell, he didn't know what he'd do.
For not quite six thousand miles, he'd followed patiently behind the Bella Nicola, rarely varying from his south-southwest course. He'd already passed other competitors and was comfortable with his position, even though Nicole led, and he was most likely steadily losing ground on her. He didn't doubt he'd make it up in the Southern Ocean--no ship was stronger than his in those seas.
As they neared the easternmost tip of South America and the waters took on the emerald green cast so common over the reefs in this area, his crew spotted some local fishing vessels about sixty miles off the coast. Anxious to confirm his second-place position, Derek closed in and signaled them. The locals approached in their log raft jangadas and related that the Desirade had already passed.
Silence claimed the deck. Word of Tallywood's lead stunned everyone. Even though the Desirade was an extreme clipper, Tallywood had never attained half its potential speed. With his superior airs and his negligence in captaining, he'd become a hated figure in the shipping community.
Tallywood's lead was surprising news in itself, but then Derek learned that the Bella Nicola had been towed into port at Recife, Brazil.
Towed?
He thought of his own strong position, of the ships he'd passed in the Bay of Biscay and down the trades. It would be a close thing to take the lead from Tallywood as they continued south, then turned east toward Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, but Derek could afford to stop. It wasn't as if Nicole would be cutting a larger lead in the meantime, and she was his main competition. Or at least, her ship was. After ordering his crew to Recife, he went to his cabin to change.
He smiled, a lupine grin, when he recalled another excellent reason to stop in Recife--namely, Madam Maria Delgado's bordello....
Without warning, the dream from two nights before flooded his mind. In it, Nicole lay in his bed, completely unclothed beside him, her impatient hands smoothing over his body. H
e turned and reached for her, pulling her body close to press against the naked length of his own.
He tilted her head to take his seeking mouth, and she eagerly met his lips, slipping her tongue in to lightly lap at his own. His hands roamed the front of her body, only stopping to press his thumbs over her nipples.
Over and over, he brushed the peaks while he plundered her mouth, until she began writhing uncontrollably, arching her pelvis onto his swollen rod, making him want to explode against her.
The husky little moans escaping her soft lips made him desperate to possess her, to pound himself into her unmercifully until he made her convulse around him and cry his name. But each time he positioned her to take him, she moved elusively, maddeningly. At last, she allowed him to rise over her, his arms at her sides and his legs resting between hers as his mouth hungrily took hers again.
Suddenly she broke the kiss, and he sensed she would move away from him again. To keep her where he wanted, he swiftly spread his legs over hers to rest against the side of each thigh so that all of him surrounded her pinned body. But then she put her small hands on his chest and, before he could stop her, pushed against him as she inched her way down his body until he straddled her shoulders and head. He was too stunned to move--too heavily aroused to think. And when she grasped him and brought that hot, wet mouth over him, he didn't know if he could stop himself from spilling into her....
Jerking upright in bed, he'd awakened from the most powerfully erotic dream he'd ever experienced. As the pressure pooled in his groin, he groaned in the dark. He gripped himself, intending to finish it off, but his rough hand sliding over his cock was a poor substitute for a woman's soft flesh, or soft mouth.
His aching erection wouldn't subside, and with each second he'd endured it, he'd sworn he would make her pay for this night. She had brought him to this--to experiencing more violently sensual dreams than he'd ever had, even as a green lad. Even more determinedly, he'd vowed that he would find a woman when they next stopped and use her until Nicole was placed firmly in the back of his mind.