Read Online The Captain's Pearl by Jo Ann Ferguson - Free Book Online

not shame Davis.”
    When he took her arm, eyes of the other men followed. Their loose clothes billowed in the same stiffbreeze which twisted her hair in a macabre dance. Pushing the dark strands from her face, her eyes locked with the man she remembered was named Simmons. She bumped into Lieutenant— Captain Trevarian, as she met Simmons’s grim expression.
    â€œWatch where you are going!” Captain Trevarian ordered. “You’re incredibly clumsy for a Catherwood, blue eyes.”
    Pulling away as far as she could while he continued to hold her arm, she murmured, “Excuse me.”
    â€œSave your excuses for when I care to listen.”
    Only her promise to Davis kept her from retorting as Captain Trevarian read the short service. Tears pressed against her eyes, but she would not cry again and dishonor her brother’s memory with her weakness before these strangers.
    When the railing was opened, and the body dropped into the waves, she gasped. How could they send Davis into the sea with only the clothes he had been wearing? A man as powerful and wealthy as her brother should have his favored belongings to give him pleasure in the next life.
    She whirled. She thought she heard Captain Trevarian calling to her, but she ran to Davis’s cabin. She swept his possessions from a shelf onto his bed. Quickly she selected the heaviest ones. They would sink to his body.
    Struggling to stay on her feet, she ran to the rear of the ship. Waves sprayed salt into her eyes. She shouted a blessing into the wind and called Davis’s name. She was spun away from the railing.
    Captain Trevarian stripped Davis’s possessions from her fingers. “You little fool!” Not giving her a chance to answer, he called, “Willis!”
    A sailor came running.
    â€œTake those to my cabin,” he ordered, as he motioned to the items on the deck.
    â€œCabin? Which one, sir?”
    Bryce looked at Lian who was glaring at him with those bewitching blue eyes. If he left her to her own devices, she would cause more trouble. She was too smart. The women he had dealt with in China had been whores who thought only of the gold they could get in exchange for a few minutes’ pleasure. Lian dared him to challenge her as she had challenged him since they had met.
    â€œI’ll be using the captain’s cabin,” Bryce replied. As Willis left to follow his orders, Bryce gripped Lian’s arm more tightly. “Come with me. It’s time you understood a few things.
    â€œI understand you are a beast! How could you stop me from giving my brother—”
    â€œSilence. Or are you forgetting your promise to your brother already?”
    When she blinked back tears, he resisted the irrational urge to draw her into his arms and comfort her. He could not. Then he might find himself forgetting that he had to get the China Shadow back to Massachusetts at top speed. There was no time to dally and savor her luscious kisses.
    When Lian hesitated outside the door of Davis’s quarters, Captain Trevarian pushed her through. “Scared of ghosts, blue eyes?”
    â€œWhy should I be frightened of my own brother?”
    â€œSit!”
    She lowered herself to the very edge of the room’s only chair.
    â€œI know all about your heathen traditions,” he went on. “What you don’t realize is that, if you had thrown our navigational tools over the side, we could have spent the rest of our lives wandering the Pacific.”
    â€œI do not—I do not understand.”
    â€œI realize that. Did you ever consider asking me first?”
    â€œThey are my brother’s possessions.”
    He smiled grimly. “No, blue eyes, they are mine. Just like the China Shadow is mine. Your brother gave them to me with his last breath.” He opened a bottle and poured rum into a cup. Taking a slow drink, he muttered, “I can’t imagine what Davis was thinking when he decided to bring