Touch Me

She slipped her arms around his waist and squeezed him. She wanted to make the pain in his voice disappear. This was a side of Drake that she had never seen, a vulnerability that she had not imagined existed. It frightened her. The knowledge that his honor and pride hid this deep need for approval battered against her already shaky defenses. Each moment she spent with him enmeshed her more firmly in feelings she did not want.

"I've never spoken to my father either." She could not believe she'd said the words.

Her secret had been locked inside for so long that she never even spoke of her father or brother to the Merewethers. The only person who mentioned them was Lady Upworth in her letters. Even now, she wasn't prepared to tell everything, but an urge so deep she couldn't deny it prompted her to tell Drake about her father.

He pulled back until their eyes met. "I thought your parents were dead."

"My mother died when I was thirteen. I've never met my father."

Drake stared at her. "You're a natural child as well?"

She shook her head. "My parents were married, but my father behaved so despicably toward my mother that she ran away with me when I was a baby."

"He never found her?"

"He never looked."

"How can you know?"

"A mutual friend wrote often."

Drake felt as if he had taken a blow from Gentleman Jackson himself. Thea's admission staggered him. He wanted to hear more and he wanted to be alone to do it. He pulled away, took her hand in his, and led her toward his cabin.

"Where are we going?"

"Someplace we can talk without the fear of interruption."

He scanned the deck when they reached his cabin and he was relieved to see that it was empty. Taking an unattached female into his room would not go over well with his aunt, or any of the other dowagers on board.

He unlocked his door and pulled Thea inside. Once he had shut the door, he motioned for her to take a seat. She didn't have many options. His cabin was sparse compared to hers. There was one small bunk, a chair, and a very small table bolted to the floor. She chose to sit on the edge of the bunk. Light filtered in through the portal and played across the too serious features of her beautiful face, highlighting the chestnut silkiness of her hair.

Her bright skirts pooled around her feet and she gripped the mattress with both hands. She bent her head as if she found something on the floor of particular interest. "I suppose you want the full story."

Hell yes. He lifted her chin with his hand and met her eyes. "Only if you want to tell it."

She sucked in a breath and then softly let it out. "When my mother was in her fourth month of pregnancy, my father insisted she accompany him to a ball. She wanted to go into confinement in the country, but appearances were important to him and some very influential members of the ton were throwing the ball. Mama loved him, so she went. She became overheated after dancing a Scottish reel and she went out into the gardens. A man who had courted her along with my father followed her out of the ballroom."

When Thea stopped talking, Drake sat down next to her and pulled her hand into his. Her fingers were like ice. "You don't have to tell me any more."

"No. I want to tell you." She looked up at him and her eyes had the depth of the sea they sailed upon.

"The man who followed Mama was a rake. He forced his attentions on her, holding her against her will and kissing her. My father came upon them. He was furious. He reviled my mother and challenged the rake to a duel." She tightened her fingers in his. "They never fought the duel. The other man came to my father and promised on his word as a gentleman that my mother had approached him. He apologized to my father and the matter was settled."

She sighed. "At least between the two men. My father never forgave my mother and refused to believe her version of the events. He is a very hard, unbending man."

Drake thought his father and hers had something in common.

"He sent my mother to live in the country until she gave birth. He stormed into the room and tore her baby from her arms and left, promising she would never see her child again."

"So she kidnapped you and ran away."

A strange expression entered her eyes at his statement, but she didn't deny it. Perhaps she did not like to think of what her mother had done as kidnapping.

"Is that why you have never returned to England?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to see your father?"