She didn’t want to. It wasn’t his trouble to share.
“Do you not trust me?”
“No, that is not it.” She said it so quickly and there was no doubt that she meant it. “I trust you.” Oh heaven help her, that was the worst part. She’d never trusted anyone outside of her own family before. She’d never let anyone close enough to need to.
Why did it have to be him? Why now? Her chest ached with the unfairness of it.
“Then tell me.” He shrugged. “Maybe I can help.”
She shook her head. “You cannot.”
He stared at her. He didn’t say a word but she could feel his hurt at being rejected. And then, as if her words were a force outside of her control, they bubbled up inside her chest, the urge to spill her secrets, to confide in him as he had her—it was too great a temptation to deny. For once she did want to lean on someone else. For once, she didn’t want to be the strong one.
Just this once, she wanted someone to take care of her.
And so she let it out. All of it. Or at least, what part she knew about her mother’s departure, what their father had told them, her bizarre return and the cryptic things she’d said.
Worst of all, she told him of the doubts that had shaken her to her core.
“You think she might be behind the piracy and smuggling in Billingham?” he asked when his dazed look of shock had lifted.
She shook her head and shrugged at once. “Maybe? I don’t know. All I know is, there are secrets there, and I think…” She swallowed down a swell of pain to admit it. “I think perhaps my father has lied to us. Or at least, he has not told us the whole truth.”
Sebastian sighed and drew her close, into his arms like she was a child in need of comfort. For a moment she held herself back, trying to keep some distance. What if someone saw? But the feel of his strong arms around her, the heat from his chest, the achingly familiar scent of him in her nose…
It was too much.
She melted against him and sputtered out an ugly sob. She wasn’t much of a crier and it ended as quickly as it started, but when she was through she felt the veriest fool. “I shouldn’t have burdened you with all that.”
He reached a hand out and touched her chin, cupping it lightly. “Of course you should have. I am your friend.”
The word friend hit her with a jarring thud and she jerked back. Is that all we are? His question from the day before came back to her now as if he’d just said them. Raising her stricken eyes to his she was nearly certain he heard it too. Or at least he was remembering.
The sadness in his eyes seemed to say he was thinking about her response. It’s all we can be.
Surely he saw now that she was right. It was one thing to court a captain’s daughter. It was quite another to court the daughter of a presumed-dead criminal.
A hysterical wave of laughter threatened to rise up in her. Was that who she was? It seemed too farfetched and ludicrous to be true. She knew nothing for certain until she talked to her father, but it was a conversation she was dreading.
“What are you thinking?” He tilted her face up once more.
“That I am not sure what to believe,” she admitted. “And that my father—my hero…” She shook her head, not wanting to say it aloud. The man she’d trusted and loved more than all others may have lied to her.
“I cannot claim to know your father well, but it seems to me that everything he’s done has been to protect you and your sisters.”
She closed her eyes and thought of every teasing jibe she’d overheard when her father’s friends came to visit. They’d done that often when she was young, and she recalled in vivid detail their confusion about why he would have left his honorable position, his full pay, his ever-rising career...to go off to the middle of nowhere and command a stone frigate which protected the coastline but that had no hope of seeing any real action.
A knot inside her eased. Whatever secrets her father was keeping, whatever lies he’d told. She knew Sebastian was right. Everything he did was for her and her sisters. “I still need to speak with him,” she said.
“Of course you do.”
“My eldest sister is en route to America, and my other sister Abigail will be on her way to London with our aunt for the season, which means…” She straightened her shoulders. “My two younger sisters need me now more than ever.”
He nodded. “I understand that.”
For a moment, she thought he did. She looked into his eyes and with a sadness she could not hide, she thought perhaps he finally understood that this was where they must end.
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
She blinked. Or perhaps not. “Pardon?”
He reached for her, holding her arms and tugging her close. “Sally,” he breathed. That was her only warning before he ducked his head, his lips molding to hers in a kiss that seared her all the way through. It seemed to brand her as his and her heart twisted in her chest as she let herself enjoy it for one moment. The taste of him. His familiar scent. The feel of his hands at her waist and the way he groaned softly at the touch of his lips against hers.
It was heaven. The moment blissful and sweet, and for a moment it wiped away all concerns and she was safe. Warm.
Happy.
She pushed back when the moment
