The Coldest Sea Read online

  “No, just one for your head.” She sat up and tucked the blankets around herself, as if smoothing down her ruffled dignity. “Would you please sit down?”

  Well, at least she’d asked, and he couldn’t really deny her such a small request. Or avoid hearing what she needed to say, for that matter. He sat on the end of the bunk. Beneath the blankets, her legs shifted as though she was bending them closer to her, scrupulously careful not to touch him, and he tamped down a growing frustration. He certainly wouldn’t get to share that bunk with her, so there was nothing left but to let her say her piece and get it over with.

  “Go on,” he said steadily.

  Maggie was beginning to have second thoughts. If she’d kept her mouth shut, she could have been curled up beneath the blankets on the verge of dozing off—if she could have slept at all in his bunk. It was warm, probably from a pan of oven-stones beneath it, but that heat alone wasn’t responsible for her bones slowly turning liquid.

  She didn’t owe him any explanations, but she wasn’t hardhearted—and besides, she’d started it by asking about the damn lock of hair in the first place. The discreet thing to do would have been never to mention her discovery, in respect for his privacy, but she had been too surprised to bear that in mind. So now Vinsen sat straight-backed at the foot of the bunk, showing nothing but polite composure, and she felt distinctly uncomfortable, as though she was compounding her mistake.

  “You were honest with me a few moments ago, when I asked about this,” she began, opening her hand.

  Vinsen reached out and plucked the curl from her palm as fast as he would have pulled out a splinter. If his fingers touched her skin, she didn’t feel it. He shoved the curl into a pocket, for all the world as if it belonged to him, and looked at her as if waiting for her to continue. Maggie opened her mouth to remonstrate, then decided she’d look a fool if she did, as if a bit of discarded hair was worth her notice, let alone an argument.

  “I should be honest too.” She lifted her chin. “I’m in love with another man.”

  “I see,” Vinsen replied.

  He didn’t sound surprised, and she wondered what to say next. Obviously he wasn’t taking that as a cue to retreat to the hammock. Surely he didn’t think it was just a convenient excuse for her turning him down?

  “The man I was going to marry,” she said.

  That time he didn’t bother to reply, only raised his brows. Maggie never lost her temper, but his sardonic reaction—the only flicker in a cool mask of a face—made the muscles of her jaws tighten. She was starting to feel too warm under her wrapper.

  “Yes, he broke off our betrothal.” Thank the Unity she could say that without a waver in her voice. “But I’m confident he’ll change his mind once he—eventually. He’s too good and honorable a man not to.”

  He was also an eminently sensible man who wasn’t likely to chase a girl who didn’t return his affection, though it occurred to Maggie that while Feona might have been the perpetual baby sister to their family, Anthny might view her in a different light. She was nearly twenty, after all. Maybe, rather than thinking of her as a little girl, he saw her as a woman.

  The thought didn’t make Maggie feel any better, and Vinsen’s continued silence wasn’t helping. “Well, say something,” she told him, struggling to keep her emotions out of her voice.

  “All right,” Vinsen said calmly. “He’s an idiot.”

  “What?”

  “To jilt you? He’d have to be.”

  Maggie realized her mouth was half-open and shut it hastily. No one in her family—no one in all of Fossilver, as far as she knew—spoke like that about Anthny. Everyone was immensely proud that the city’s favorite son was being considered for a position in the Council of Eyes and Voices. Vinsen obviously didn’t give a damn, though. And did he think less of her, for being in love with someone he considered an idiot?

  “He’s just young,” she said defensively. At twenty-five, she was only a year younger than Anthny. “And inexperienced—”

  “And there was another woman?”

  She stared at him. “How did you know?”

  He shrugged. “You wouldn’t have been beating around the bush like that otherwise.”

  Maggie tugged her wrapper a little more snugly closed at the throat, because he could see far more of her than she was comfortable with. “Yes,” she had to admit. “My younger sister, not that she was to blame. It’s just that she finally came home after a long apprenticeship and she was, well…”

  “All grown up.”

  She nodded. The brief unsettling moment faded, because in a way it was a relief that he could guess what was coming next, and that he didn’t appear surprised. “Anyway, that’s one reason I’m traveling to Lyrance. Distance lends enchantment to the view.”

  His face changed almost imperceptibly, as though the muscles beneath the skin had turned ice-hard. “The man who marries you should know you’ve got enchantment enough without your needing to travel halfway across the land first.”

  There was a jolt deep within her chest, and it took her a moment to recover. Whether she liked the compliment or not—oh, who was she fooling? She liked it—she couldn’t be so disloyal as to sit there and listen to him criticize someone who was not only her childhood friend but the man she hoped to spend the rest of her life with. Whatever Anthny had done, he didn’t deserve that.

  On the other hand, she had no intention of discussing either him or their relationship with Vinsen any further. “No one’s perfect.”

  Vinsen was silent for a moment, his eyes hooded. “So if he comes after you, you’ll take him back?”

  “Of course.”

  He nodded as if making a check mark at the end of a list of figures which had finally been balanced, and got to his feet. “Thank you for being honest with me.”

  “Wait.” The word was sudden, spoken with no conscious volition, but when she said it, he stopped as if his body had frozen in midaction. She remembered how he had entered her cabin a split second after Ruay, evidently hearing swift footsteps outside, had whipped the shears down. Vinsen had strode in and gone still, as he’d done now, unmoving except for the blue eyes which took in everything at a glance.

  Then he had acted, swiftly and decisively. From the moment she had seen him, she hadn’t been afraid. She thought of the strength in his arms as he’d lifted her, and the skill in hands that turned broken things into carvings, and a soft heat went singing through her blood as though she had tossed back a glass of wine in one swallow. She didn’t give herself any more time for uncertainty before she spoke.

  “That was just half of it.” It was an effort to keep her voice steady and her gaze on his; she tightened her fists beneath crumpled wool and hoped to the Unity he didn’t notice that. “Whatever I feel for him, he’s not here. You are.”

  There. She had said it. Just like on the second night of their voyage, she’d made the effort. And if she’d been nervous in her cabin, thinking the makeshift tablecloth and place settings looked stupid and were hardly what a naval officer was used to, it was nothing compared to how she felt now.

  Especially since Vinsen wasn’t giving her any encouragement. He studied her as impersonally as if she were a stranger.

  “It doesn’t bother you, being with one man when you’re in love with another?” he said.

  Maggie wondered why he assumed she couldn’t separate love and sex. She didn’t know when exactly Anthny would come to his senses and realize he’d made a mistake in, well, in jilting her, so how long was she supposed to keep herself untouched?

  Besides, if Fallstar escaped to the mainland—which was by no means a given—Anthny wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if he criticized what she’d done in his absence, or who she’d done it with. She’d give him an earful if he tried.

  “It’s not as though we’ve made vows to each other,” she said.

&nb
sp; “We meaning you and I, or you and him?”

  “Yes.”

  The corners of Vinsen’s mouth twitched, but that was the only change in his face. “What if you become pregnant? I wasn’t expecting this, so I didn’t bring any preventatives.”

  Although she had no answer to that problem, she couldn’t help being pleased that he thought of how a night in his bed would affect her rather than him. But if she was going to die, she’d live first. Vinsen’s leaving the ship for the iceberg made her want him all the more, and whatever happened later, at least she’d have no regrets.

  “We could all have died during the raid,” she said. “This isn’t the time to think about what-ifs. If all we have is—”

  “No.”

  “What?” She hadn’t expected such a flat refusal.

  “I’m sorry, Maggie.” Vinsen went to the bedroom door and paused with one hand on the handle. “But rest assured I did consider your offer, and I can’t say I wasn’t tempted.”

  In the rational part of her mind, Maggie knew she had to react the same way he did—respond with a calm, collected formality that acknowledged the response and ended the situation. But she couldn’t do it. Especially once the surprise gave way to a strange lurching sensation. She felt as if she had been standing on a step and an unexpected push between her shoulder blades had sent her stumbling off the edge. It was bad enough being jilted once, but now even Vinsen was turning her down—when all she’d offered was a night in bed?

  “Then why?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

  “Because I’m not interested in being a substitute for anyone.”

  “That’s not—” She shook her head, more in disbelief than negation, because she would never have tried to pretend it was Anthny with her. The two of them were far too different. “I wouldn’t have done that.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “No.” Much as it frustrated her that he was so closed-off, she wasn’t going to be the same. She’d already lost Anthny, so she wouldn’t relinquish Vinsen’s friendship too. “I just wanted things to be open between us, because that was something I didn’t do with him. Our fathers arranged our betrothal, so I took it for granted instead of telling him how much he meant to me.”

  Vinsen’s brows came together. “Did he tell you how much he loved you?”

  Did he? Maggie tried to remember. They had talked a great deal, and he liked listening to her play the harpsichord, seeming not to notice any mistakes. Once they had slipped away to a distant inn, pretending to be newly married, and had made love there. Other than not actually living with him in Skybeyond, she might as well have been his wife, so she had never needed words to convince her of his feelings.

  “He showed it,” she said.

  “Then I’m sure you showed it too, and there’s nothing you should blame yourself for.”

  She hadn’t thought of it that way. Time and again, she’d picked her behavior apart to figure out what mistakes she’d made, but if Vinsen was right, she’d shown her love in everything she’d done. Encouraging Anthny as he worked his way to the Council of Eyes and Voices, waiting for him whenever he wasn’t required in Skybeyond. Staying a virgin for him too, because she’d thought a woman with too experienced a past might not be a suitable wife for someone so close to the Unity.

  If she’d done all that and more, why hadn’t he known she was in love with him? And if he’d known it, why hadn’t she been enough?

  That was an unsettling thought. As long as there was something she could do—whether speak up for herself or retreat to wait patiently—there was hope. She’d solve the problem, change Anthny’s mind and earn herself the prosperous gracious life she’d dreamed of.

  If nothing she could be or say or do made a difference, though, it was over.

  To her surprise, no crushing sense of loss descended. Instead, for the first time she didn’t feel the frustration of wishing she’d done something differently—been warmer or bolder. Or hell, burst into tears when he’d told her he didn’t want to be married. Perhaps the end of their betrothal had been inevitable rather than because of something she’d done or failed to do.

  Not that she liked the prospect of never seeing Anthny again. But if he would never want her in that way, there wasn’t much point in trying to change herself. She remembered what Vinsen had said, that the man who married her should find her enchanting without her needing to make any drastic gestures, and she looked up to see him watching her in silence.

  “You’ve been very good to me,” she said.

  She’d meant it as thanks, but he evidently didn’t take it the same way, because his mouth tightened. “I’m not interested in gratitude sex either.”

  “Unity!” For the first time she lost her temper completely; what on Eden was wrong with him, taking every word of hers as some sort of affront? Flinging the covers back, she was out of bed in the next moment and facing him. “What the hell makes you think I’m offering that?”

  He started to speak and she cut in. “Don’t tell me to get back into bed. This has nothing to do with anyone else, just us. And I’m not the kind of woman who drops her drawers for any reason except one.”

  If Vinsen had been startled at the beginning of her outburst, he looked completely unbelieving at the last thing she’d said. Maggie heard herself and desperately willed a hot tide of embarrassment to rise no higher than her neck. She wasn’t a prude, but she didn’t talk like that normally. She always tried to be refined and genteel, worthy of a place in Skybeyond. Trust Vinsen to bring out the worst in her.

  “What’s that reason?” he said, and he actually sounded curious now.

  Her heart thudded, but her mouth seemed to have locked up—fine time for that now it was too late. Don’t be a coward, she thought, and swallowed through a constriction. But as always, she found actions easier than words. Her arms moved of their own volition, her fingers closing on the sides of her wrapper. She pulled, and the heavy wool slid off her shoulders.

  His gaze dropped at once, and although he lifted it to meet her eyes again, there was a pause on the way. She knew exactly what that was about, since the nightgown she’d always thought of as thick and shapeless couldn’t hide the points of her nipples pressing into the soft cloth. Not out of cold.

  “That I want a man very much,” she said. “And I want you.”

  He closed the distance between them with one stride and pulled her against him. The movement was so swift it caught her by surprise, and he muffled her gasp with his mouth. His tongue found hers as if drinking her in, swallowing the sound.

  She had been kissed before, but not like that. Never like that. His mouth on hers was a seduction in and of itself, slow and searching, his tongue moving against hers until heat went rippling out through her body. But while his kiss was certain and commanding, in control, his arms were tight around her as if he couldn’t bear to let her go.

  She filled her fists with the coarse bearhide of his coat, holding him close to her as she kissed him back. He groaned deep in his throat and finally released her, his breath coming hard, warm on her face. Her eyes opened slowly, but she couldn’t have spoken any further if she had wanted to.

  His fingers closed around her wrists and he drew her hands away—but only so he could strip the wrapper off her arms completely. He tossed it over the foot of the bed. She managed to keep her feet apart on the rag rug so she didn’t sway, but other than that she couldn’t move. Vinsen held her motionless with his eyes, with the intensity of his gaze on her.

  Then he pulled the lacings of her nightgown free, slowly and deliberately as if he had all the night ahead just to strip her. His hands skimmed over her shoulders, not bothering to pull now—the cloth moved with his palms, obeying him. The worn-soft flannel slid down her body and crumpled around her feet.

  A prickling wave of gooseflesh washed over her skin and made her nipples tighten even fu
rther, but when Vinsen moved back a step to look at her, the cold was gone. His hands gripped her shoulders, holding her in place for him to enjoy with his eyes, and his gaze felt like a touch of blue fire moving over her, branding her. A hot ache began between her legs.

  She couldn’t move, and she hoped he would simply pull her to him as he’d done before. Clothed, naked, she didn’t care as long as it was his body against hers. Instead he went to his knees in one smooth movement and his hands pressed her legs open.

  Her body went rigid and her eyes shut involuntarily. She knew what he was going to do, but it had happened so fast that she felt overwhelmed. She wasn’t sure she could remain standing. Except she couldn’t retreat with the bunk behind her, and the trembling in her thighs didn’t stop them moving apart for him. Her throat was so tight she couldn’t make a sound.

  He breathed out lightly on damp curly hair, and she swayed, but a strong arm braced her at once. “Hold on to me, Maggie,” he said, and she obeyed without thinking twice, without even needing to open her eyes to see him as her hands fell to his shoulders. His fingers spread her, and he tasted her in one long stroke that was slow and endless, as if claiming every part of her his mouth touched.

  The ache crested instantly, turning to a demand that wrenched a sob from her, and as if he heard that and took mercy, his fingers slid into her. Swift and deep, and everything inside her clenched in a shudder that went through her entire body. Her cry was sharp and startled. The first rush of release turned her legs to rags, and without taking his fingers from inside her he stopped licking her and sucked gently instead, drawing her climax out until the world reeled dizzily.

  She jerked in his grip. Her flesh tightened around his fingers again and again, and she was gasping between the spasms, only to lose her breath in strangled sounds torn from the depths of her throat. As if from a great distance, she felt his fingers slide out of her, and she half-collapsed over him.

  Then she was tumbled effortlessly back into bed, the sheet cool under her skin. Shivering in reaction, she managed to open her eyes. Vinsen pulled his boots off and unbuckled his knife-belt, but his fingers paused on the fastenings of his coat. Without removing that, he sat down and turned to face her.