Teresa Medeiros (35 page)

He took a menacing step toward her. “Don’t make me strip you, Lucy. I’m well aware that’s your only gown.”

“Oh, please, I—” Remembering her earlier vow not to beg, Lucy clenched her chattering teeth over her pleas. Gerard’s image wavered through a sheen of unspilled tears as she fought to salvage her dignity. “I don’t deserve this.”

Her softly spoken rebuke had no discernible effect on him. She gathered her skirt, then hesitated, remembering that she wasn’t even wearing a petticoat to
shield her from his probing eyes. Perhaps that was to be her punishment for dropping it on his quartermaster’s head.

She dragged the gown off and stood stiffly before him, trying not to shiver in nothing but her thin chemise, silk drawers and tattered pride. Her fingers bit into the balled-up gown, but she refused to do herself the indignity of covering herself with her hands.

His eyes raked her once, twice, before he came striding toward her. Lucy closed her eyes, dreading the moment when he would lay his hands on her. When he would rob her of her innocence with nothing more than his unrelenting grip as he steered her toward the bed.

He stopped so near to her that she could feel his breath stir the hair at her temple, feel the inescapable heat of his body scorching the vulnerable skin bared by her scant attire. She drew in a shaky breath, then wished she hadn’t. He smelled of wind and sea and salt—the aroma of freedom. After days spent locked in the stuffy cabin, the seductive fragrance intoxicated her. Currents swirled between them, more violent than anything the sea had to offer.

Sensing that she was the one in danger of being sucked into their depths, Lucy no longer dared even to breathe.

Without warning, the gown was torn from her clenched fist. Her eyes flew open. To her shock, Gerard had left her to stride to the door. He sent it crashing into the opposite wall, then hurled her gown into the passageway.

She watched, dumb with amazement, as he emptied the wardrobe and sea chest of his own clothes with similar savagery, slamming drawers and muttering beneath his breath the entire time. He ruthlessly whisked both blankets and sheets from the bed, leaving the
feather tick bare of all but pillows. Within minutes, he’d fed every scrap of cloth in the cabin, except what they were both wearing, to the voracious mouth of the hold.

He slammed the lid of the empty chest with deafening force before wheeling to face her. “Maybe you’ll think twice about escaping the trap now, Miss Mouse. One look at you in that—that”—he swallowed hard—“frivolous creation and my men will tear you apart.” His voice lowered to a growl. “By the time they’re finished, there won’t be enough left of you to feed to the sharks.”

It was a creditable impersonation of a leering pirate, but Lucy was not quite convinced. Gerard was glaring at a spot just over her right shoulder. His powerful hands were fisted. In threat or to hide their own unsteadiness? she wondered with dizzying insight.

His unexpected vulnerability emboldened her. Gave her the first clue that she might hold her own weapons in this duel of wits he’d forced upon her. Perhaps she could win back her clothes by less than conventional means.

Shaking back her hair, she forced herself to stroll over to the bed as if she were accustomed to parading about in her drawers before fully dressed men. “That wasn’t very sporting of you, Captain. As I’m sure you know, the nights are quite chilly at sea.”

For a stunned moment, Gerard couldn’t have said whether Lucy Snow was trying to shame or seduce him. Her glance was reproving, but her faint pout hinted at sultry promise. He struggled to cling to his anger. Rational anger at her foolish escape attempt. Irrational anger that she believed him capable of committing the most heinous of crimes against her, even though he’d given her no reason to believe otherwise.
The lantern light worked its revealing magic through her sheer undergarments, distracting him.

It would have been wiser to have Apollo remove her clothes, but there were some things a captain could not ask his quartermaster to do, not even when he trusted him implicitly.

“So you think me a poor host, do you?” he asked.

Her lashes, so dark and striking in one so fair, swept down to veil her eyes. “Would you blame me? You’ve kept me locked away for days.”

“For your own protection.”

“So you say. But I won’t be of much use to you in your dealings with my father if I take an ague and die of exposure.”

She sank down on the edge of the bed, the subtle arch of her back accentuating the provocative thrust of her small breasts against the flimsy silk. Gerard’s palms tingled at the memory of their flawless weight in his hands, their incredible responsiveness to his touch. His gaze followed the curve of her lazily swinging calf. Had her legs always been so long? So delectable?

He tried to swallow again, but his throat had gone dry. What had prompted this unnerving display of audacity? he wondered. He would have been lying if he said he was entirely displeased with it. Perhaps it was time to call her bluff.

As Gerard approached the bed, his fleet steps unaffected by the rhythmic cant of the planking floor, Lucy fought to hide the unsettling effect of his nearness.

It became impossible when he reached down and slid his hand beneath her hair. His broad palm cupped her throat. His fingertips pressed against her nape with beguiling tenderness. It was the first time she’d allowed him to touch her since coming aboard, but she could hardly scorn his touch when she’d as much as
invited it with her reckless posturing. Too late, she realized she’d challenged a master at his own game.

“Why, you’re shivering, Miss Snow!” he exclaimed, his brow knit with profound concern. “Might you already be taking a chill?”

As Lucy gazed into the hypnotic hazel of his eyes, she didn’t feel chilled. She felt hot, palsied, possessed by a primitive fever spreading outward from his touch to warm every inch of her sun-deprived body. It melted through her veins like hot butter, drenching her in want.

Her intended whisper came out as a croak. “I think not, sir. My health has always been robust.”

Sliding to his knees on the bed beside her, he shook his head sadly. “You mustn’t delude yourself, dear. Just look at you.” He brushed her hair back from her brow. “You’re flushed. Hoarse.” His mouth descended on hers; his voice lowered to a husky whisper. “Short of breath.”

What meager breath she did have was stolen by the alluring pressure of his lips against hers. As he shaped her mouth to fit the heated contours of his own, he gathered her into his arms, sliding one hand beneath her chemise to claim the bare skin of her back. Lucy had braced herself for his brutality, but this gentle assault on her senses undid her completely. His kiss was tender and rife with promises of pleasure only he could fulfill.

Her lips flowered beneath his, coaxing his tongue to flick the sensitive interior of her mouth to melting acquiescence. He delved deeper, testing the honeyed waters with maddening restraint. Lucy clung to him, enchanted by the tickle of the unfamiliar mustache, the prickle of his beard, the taste of salt and sea and male, the provocative rub of his narrow hips against her own.

His hands slid downward, slipping into the waist of her drawers to knead the softness of her bare buttocks. He deftly tilted her until the rigid length straining against the front seam of his breeches was positioned perfectly at the vulnerable cleft between her thighs. Lucy gasped, believing for a breathless moment that he might actually breach the fragile skein of fabric to possess her.

Instead, he kissed her to the brink of surrender, then drew back, leaving her tingling, limp, and panting for fulfillment.

His eyes sparkled with dark mischief, but his unsteady breathing proved he wasn’t as unaffected as he pretended to be. “ ’Tis worse than I feared. Your eyes are glazed, your muscles have lost all their vigor.” He cast a naughty glance over her shoulder. “Why, even your toes are curled! I don’t believe you’re suffering from an ague at all, but from a classic case of malaise.”

Lucy stiffened and withdrew from his arms. She met his eyes with bitter candor and said softly, “A pity there’s no cure for it. I fear it will be the death of me.”

For the briefest of instants, she thought she saw remorse flicker through his eyes, but then it was gone, banished by the predatory scrutiny she’d come to expect from Captain Doom.

He caught her chin between two fingers, his grip more possessive than even his kiss had been. “You needn’t fret about catching a chill, dear. Where we’re going, the nights are much hotter.”

As he rose to go, Lucy was besieged by images of swaying palms, shell-strewn beaches, naked bodies glistening with sweat. Her heart thundered to the rhythm of native drums.

Humbled by her own wretched weakness, she called after him, “If I give you my word I won’t try to escape, may I have my gown back?”

He paused at the door. “I fear, Miss Snow, that your word means no more to me than your father’s.”

He closed the door behind him, twisted the key in the lock, and slid the bolt home with a care bordering on tenderness.

Choking out an impotent cry of frustration, Lucy hurled a pillow at the door, then collapsed on the bed in near despair. One more encounter such as that one and there would be no need to sell her to white slavers. Gerard could just keep her locked in his cabin, half clothed and half out of her wits, until she was begging to do his sensual bidding.

Groaning, she curled up on her side on the bare tick, possessed by a raging fever that had nothing to do with ague.

Lucy awakened as she had awakened each morning aboard the
Retribution
—to the sound of Apollo’s singing. If his majestic bass held a note of false cheer as he approached the cabin, he disguised it beneath the soaring melody of an island hymn.

Unable to bear his undaunted spirits, Lucy wished for a blanket to pull over her head. It felt muzzy and full, as if she’d once again spent her tears in the privacy of sleep.

She heard the key turn, the bolt slide back, the door swing open. The song swelled. She decided to simply lie with her eyes squinched shut until Apollo and his damnable optimism went away.

She was jarred from her self-pity by a crash that seemed to shake the entire ship. An ominous silence followed.

“Apollo?” she whispered.

When her timid query received no answer, she sat bolt upright in the bed. Apollo was stretched facedown on the floor, a giant felled by nothing more
than the delicate brocade pillow she had hurled at the door the night before.

The Admiral’s voice boomed through her conscience for the first time since she’d learned of his betrayal.
How many times have I told that stupid girl not to scatter things about on the floor? Won’t be satisfied till I break my bloody neck
.

“Good God, I’ve killed him!” she cried, tumbling from the bed. “Gerard will never forgive me for this.”

Too distraught to examine why Gerard’s forgiveness should matter to her, she rushed toward Apollo’s prostrate form, already dreading what she would find.

Her trembling hand sought his throat. His skin was warm, the pulse beneath pounding with the reassuring cadence of a kettledrum.

A sigh of relief gusted from Lucy’s lungs. From where she crouched, she could see the faint smile curving Apollo’s lips, almost as if he were dreaming of something agreeable.

“Thank you, Lord,” she murmured, rolling her eyes heavenward.

The Lord rewarded her prayer with a startling view of the cabin door, which stood gaping open in invitation.

Lucy looked at Apollo. Lucy looked at the door. After all of her botched escape attempts, surely it couldn’t be that easy, could it? she thought. Her heart skittered in her breast. She glanced down at her sleep-rumpled chemise and drawers, dismayed by the overwhelming expanse of pink skin they revealed. Gerard’s warnings about his crew echoed in her ears. Did she dare?

She scrambled to her feet, knowing she had to take the chance. Last night had proved one thing to her—there wasn’t a man aboard this vessel more dangerous
to her than its captain, for despite his treachery, she was powerless to resist him.

“Pleasant dreams, Apollo,” she whispered, relishing her turn to close the door, twist the key, and drive the heavy bolt home.