Page 77 of Devil of the High Seas
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Up on deck,Gavin saw Josephine speaking to her father as the two faced the open sea. When she noticed him, she broke away from Lord Camden and rushed over, and he clasped her to him tightly. He couldn’t seem to hold her long enough or kiss her long enough. Losing her once had made him afraid to ever miss a single moment with her again. Of course, having Lord Camden watching over Josephine had kept Gavin on his best behavior. There was nothing like seeing Josephine’s father shoot a pirate in the back for hurting his child. One could only imagine what he’d do to Gavin. He hadn’t been allowed to sleep in the same cabin with her, and he’d missed the comfort of her lying beside him every night.
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” he promised. “Griffin woke up. His fever finally broke. The doctor says otherwise, but I believe it was Vesper’s love that brought him back, just as you said it would. It’s a damned miracle.”
The surgeon believed that no organs had been pierced by the bullet. Nevertheless, the bullet had done much damage to his muscles. They had stitched up his wounds and prayed for the best. It would still take a long time for him to heal.
“Josie. He’s agreed to break the marriage contract.”
She glanced across the deck at her father. “I suspected that he might.”
Gavin cleared his throat. “Then you will marry me?”
She looked up at him, a sudden light in her eyes. “Well, you did go to all the trouble of fetching a vicar and rescuing me. I rather suppose I must.”
He knew she was teasing, but he still felt a flutter of nerves inside him.
He cupped her face in his hands. “My whole life I’ve been drifting at sea, chasing the horizon and letting the wind push me farther and farther away from shore. It wasn’t until I met you that I realized how lost I was and how much I wanted to come home.” His breath caught as he suddenly found it hard to speak. “Youare my home.”
Love transformed her face with a look of awe, and he wondered what she saw in him at that moment. He was a pirate, a man scarred inside and out. She reached up and her fingers curled around his wrists.
“Marry me,” she whispered. “Marry me, marry me.” It was an echo of their vows on the Isle of Song.
“I will marry you today. I will marry you tomorrow. I will marry you every day for the rest of our lives.”
She stood up on her toes and pressed her lips to his. He closed his eyes, feeling the wind rise up around them just as it rippled through the canvas of the sails. But this time the breeze would not push him away. He washere, anchored by his love for her. Griffin had been right.
As Josephine kissed him, he felt the pure strength of her love like bright summer morning sunlight after a dark storm had ravaged the night. She’d found him in the midst of a storm, hadn’t she? That night long ago when he’d fallen into her arms and she had brought the dawn.
Their mouths broke apart, and he was breathing fast with excitement.
“A man like me doesn’t deserve to be this happy,” he confessed as he smoothed his thumbs over her cheeks and nuzzled her nose.
“Well, you do still have to speak to my father,” she replied with a little laugh, and he kissed her again.
“Bloody hell, I do, don’t I? It would be far easier if we simply ran off to Sugar Cove and let the vicar marry us there.” He groaned. “Stay here.” He crossed the deck to where Lord Camden still stood. The man had one hand on the railing and was watching the water ripple with light.
“Lord Camden...” He honestly had no idea how to begin this conversation. “I apologize for taking your daughter the way that I did, but I won’t apologize for wanting to claim her.”
Camden smiled sadly. “You’re wrong, my boy. She claimedyou. That’s the first lesson in marriage you have to learn. No man can own a woman. There are those who foolishly think they can treat women like butterflies trapped in a jar, but that jar in time will suffocate a wild, beautiful creature. Set a woman free and if she truly loves you, she will claim you as hers. Do you understand?”
“I believe I do,” Gavin said.
He finally faced Gavin. “I have two sons, both of them fine, good men. I see myself in them. But my little Josie was always somethingmore. Daughters are like that. You try to shield them from the evils of the world, to protect them. The hardest thing in life is to let them go.”
He looked once more out onto the water. “She was so small and perfect when I first held her in my arms. I didn’t think it was possible to love something so new to this world in an instant, but I did. And I can’t let her go to justanyman.” He tapped his fingers on the railing and then gripped the wood as he seemed to fight back a tide of emotions.
“She will marry you, regardless of what I say. But I want your word, Castleton. Give her the world, give her freedom, and give her yourself fully and completely. It’s the only thing I can demand of you, but it’s what matters most.”
“She’s the very beat within my heart,” Gavin said, his throat tight. “She has me and all that I can give her for as long as life gives me breath. I promise you, she will always be free.”
Camden slowly turned again and held out a hand. “Then we’d better find that bloody drunk vicar.”
Gavin laughed as they shook hands. “The sooner the better.”
CHAPTER18
