Nicole Jordan - The Passion

His mouth curled in a grim semblance of a smile. He must still be reeling from the blows to his head if he was entertaining such fantasies. It was highly doubtful a duke's daughter would lend herself to a mad proposal admittedly conceived in desperation. He intended to make her sacrifice worth her while, of course, yet even so she might refuse.

Well then, he would simply have to convince her.

He had no choice. If there was the slightest possibility of fulfilling his promise, he had to seize it.

When he summoned me to his chamber, my heart lodged in my throat.

It was irrational, Aurora knew, to brood over a stranger she had met for a brief moment and would never see again. Yet even in sleep she could not forget him. Aurora tossed and turned the entire night, her dreams dark with images of Nicholas Sabine struggling to break his chains while she was powerless to help him.

When the hangman's noose tightened around the strong column of his throat, she woke with a start, her heart pounding in fear. Unable to bear the grim visions any longer, Aurora hurriedly dressed and went downstairs, where she found Percy eating breakfast before he left for his offices. She joined him at the table but declined anything but coffee.

"Will you go to the fortress today?" she asked, trying to keep her tone casual yet knowing she failed.

Percy gave her a concerned look. He hadn't approved of her visiting the prisoner yesterday, even on a mission of mercy for a man who was his friend. Indeed, he'd been a bit startled to hear of her boldness.

"This is not like you, Aurora. I know you must be aware of the impropriety of your behavior. Normally you show more consideration to your position in society."

Aurora lowered her gaze, knowing her cousin was right. Yet she hadn't been herself since she first laid eyes on Nicholas Sabine. She couldn't explain her desperate concern even to herself, let alone to her cousin.

"I simply abhor seeing anyone treated in such a terrible fashion," she prevaricated.

Percy's gaze held sympathy. "My dear… you should prepare yourself for the worst. Word was sent to Barbados yesterday, asking the admiral's permission to hang Sabine. We may learn the answer today."

She felt her stomach clench with fear. She had hoped he might be spared that dire fate, if only because of his prominent connections.

"I promise I will let you know the verdict as soon as I hear," Percy assured her.

Aurora nodded, not trusting herself to speak with the ache in her throat.

She was glad when Percy turned the subject to more mundane matters, and gladder still when he took his leave. When she was alone, she rose and went to stand at the breakfast room window, gazing out, unseeing, at the sun-swept lawns with their tall, swaying palms and splashes of scarlet bougainvillaea.

She was mistaken to have visited Nicholas Sabine in his prison cell, she realized. Not simply because of the impropriety, but because she'd only gained more vivid images that made him harder to forget. It was impossible to stop thinking about him. She could still feel his overwhelming presence – the forbidden sight of his bare, sun-bronzed skin, his quiet touch on her cheek, the tenderness in his dark eyes…

Aurora bit her lower lip, chastising herself for her foolishness. Hadn't she learned it was better not to care too deeply for anyone?

She had lost the two people who were most dear to her. Her mother several years ago. Then, more recently, her betrothed, Geoffrey Crewe, Earl of March.

Her long-planned future had shattered when Geoffrey perished at sea. She'd been engaged to him practically from the cradle. As her father's nearest though distant male relative, Geoffrey was next in line for the dukedom and the vast Eversley estates. And Father was determined to keep the title for his grandsons, since an ignoble physical condition had left him unable to sire any more children.

Aurora understood why he so badly wanted a son to continue the line of inheritance that had been unbroken since the reign of Henry II – and why she had always been his biggest disappointment.

She would have been happy to have been born male, for then she could have avoided the fate her father had determined for her. She hadn't even recovered from the tragic news of Geoffrey's death when her father quietly accepted on her behalf the suit of a noble crony – the illustrious Duke of Halford. No matter that she could scarcely bear to contemplate marriage to such a man, or that he had already outlived two young wives, losing one to childbirth and one to a bizarre drowning accident. Halford was wealthy enough to buy a duke's daughter, and his lineage went back even farther than Henry II.

Her father didn't see the union as punishment. He claimed he merely wanted to see her settled and well provided for, safely wed to a title and fortune when the Eversley title passed out of their direct family at his death. With a bitter sigh, Aurora wondered if in truth he simply wanted her off his hands, so he would no longer be reminded of his failure.

When Percy and Jane had invited her to visit their home in the West Indies, she'd accepted gratefully, not only hoping her grief would heal more readily in fresh surroundings, but also wishing to delay her unwanted marriage as long as possible. The intervening months, however, hadn't diminished her revulsion at the necessity of becoming Halford's bride. She dreaded returning to England now, where her illustrious suitor was reportedly growing impatient to publicly announce their betrothal, but she'd run out of excuses to tarry.

Clenching her hands into fists, Aurora turned away from the window. Ordinarily she would have gone riding to work off her feelings of frustration and helplessness or joined Jane in making her weekly round of charitable calls, a responsibility Jane took very seriously as the lieutenant governor's wife. But Aurora didn't want to be away from the house if word came about the American prisoner.

Instead she fetched a shawl so that she could pace the grounds in view of the front drive. It was hard, though, to remain passive, to sit idly by while the world was ruled by men.

How different her life would be were she a male, Aurora reflected fiercely. How much more freedom she would have. She would have relished possessing a measure of control over her existence. Were she a man, she would have had the power to influence her own future… and others' as well.

Perhaps then she could actually have helped Nicholas Sabine, instead of being forced by propriety to accept a woman's lot and wait impotently at home for word of his fate.

The afternoon was well advanced by the time Percy returned home. Aurora had been watching for him anxiously from the drawing room and so was able to meet him at the front door.

"I am glad to find you here, my dear," Percy said quietly. "I thought you might have accompanied Jane on her calls."

"I wanted to hear the news."

Waving off the footman who stood ready to take his hat, Percy met her gaze with reluctance. The grim expression on his face told her without words the news she dreaded hearing.

She pressed a hand to her mouth to hold back a cry.

"Aurora, I'm sorry," he said simply. "The admiral was disinclined to be merciful."

For a moment her cousin remained silent, as if giving her time to compose herself. Then he took her hands in a gentle grasp. "My dear, this is obviously a wretched time, but I have a serious matter to discuss with you."

Still numb with shock, Aurora scarcely heard what her cousin was saying.

"There has been an unanticipated turn of events." He paused, a troubled look on his face. "Nicholas Sabine has a… request to make of you."

"A request?" she repeated hoarsely.

"I spoke with Nick after the admiral's decision became known," Percy explained in a low voice, "and he sought my opinion of a rather wild notion. I did not refuse him outright, for I thought you should hear him out and decide for yourself. It is an extraordinary proposal… but then these are extraordinary circumstances."

"I… don't understand. What does he wish to ask of me?"

"He would like your help, actually. It seems he has a duty he must fulfill, yet now he will no longer be alive to do so."

"What duty?"

"Sabine has a ward, a half sister who lives on Montserrat. The young lady urgently needs the protection of someone of your consequence, as well as an escort to England. And since you are planning to return there shortly… Well, there is more, but I don't want to influence you unduly. You should hear the proposal directly from Sabine himself. If you are willing to listen, I will accompany you to the fortress at once."

"You mean now, at this moment?" Aurora asked in confusion.

"Yes, now." He released her hands. "Time is growing short, I'm afraid. The hanging has been put off until tomorrow, but after that…"

His voice trailed off, yet Aurora was grateful that he failed to put the rest of his sentence into words.

She had never again expected to see the bold American who had touched her life so fleetingly. Thus it was with a heavy heart that Aurora returned to the fortress prison. She felt a hollowness in the pit of her stomach as she preceded her cousin into the dim cell.

Nicholas Sabine stood with his back to her, a shaft of sunlight gilding his fair hair. He was fully clothed this time, she noted absently. Someone – perhaps Percy – had provided him with a coat and a pair of Hessian boots, so that he more closely resembled a gentleman of means than a savage pirate or a condemned prisoner.