The garrison, dear God, where was the garrison?
He tried to keep focused on the space he found himself in, but the sting in his eyes kept blurring it. He knew from a life of shipping and ships that the unusual room had to be the captain's quarters, if only because of its size. Instead of the set of three or four rooms normally used by captains or masters of the ship, this man's quarters was one large space, as if he had knocked down the walls of decency that separated the sleeping berth from the dining room and the captain's study. A library of books covered one whole wall, too, the expensive and precious tomes neatly shelved on racks, frivolously left on a ship to rot in the moist sea air. A huge table for twelve occupied the middle of the room, an enormous desk and chair faced a sitting area with reading chairs and a sofa built to the wall, these latter done in leather and dark blue velvet. The entire corner was used for a bed as large as any in a house, this canopied in the same dark blue velvet as that of the sofa and chairs.
The queerest things were to be found in this devil's workshop; half of them were live creatures. An incomprehensible contraption of metal, wheels, and wire sat near the desk; it was moving like a clock. A long glass like a telescope stood near it. A large red, green, and yellow parrot sat on a perch near the table, looking at him, saying over and over as if to torment him, "Bawk, damnation, bawk, damnation ... all hands, I say, bawk, damnation ..." A long glass tank was built into the wall near the sofa, and inside were tiny living fish. A white tabby cat watched him wearily from the desk. More than one obscene wood carving decorated the space. He saw so many other strange things that he began to think he was hallucinating from the loss of blood. ...
The thing that frightened him without reason was the large stuffed black panther sitting atop the bookshelves, for it looked almost alive. A black creature with round eyes of gold watching him, smiling wickedly. He knew he was hallucinating when the long tail began to lift and fall, lift and fall, lift and fall. . . .
Stoddard was next awakened by a weak eruption in his chest, a cough and a sputter. He woke just in time to hear the call to raise the anchor. His "Nooo!" came with surprising force, and he weakly struggled with the bonds tying him. Once they set sail there would be less than an hour for the garrison to follow, and it would mean an exchange of fire at sea—
Voices sounded outside the door, and he heard that voice, his captor's voice. "Here, take the girl. Rouse her and fix her arm. I want her conscious. . . ."
No, dear God, not Clarissa! Not my beautiful blue-eyed little girl who looked more like her mother than the other she-creature sprung from her womb. Clarissa belonged only to him, his sacred gift when her mother left. He'd kill any man who laid a finger on her. He shut his eyes tight, praying for the first time in his life. A small thud sounded. "Bawk, all hands, big trouble, bawk!" Stoddard opened his eyes to see the panther-like cat slowly pacing in front of him, and he screamed . . .
Juliet stirred beneath an unpleasant scent. She opened her eyes to see the nightmarish shape of the red-haired devil, not the giant but a young man. She stopped her scream with a gasp and instinctively backed against the wall. Her eyes grew wide as she waited to see what form her torment would take.
"Jesus, if you don't look like you've left the world with ideas of heaven only to see the fire instead." Gayle dipped a cloth in a bowl of cool water and wrung it out with sure steady movements, then raised it to her head. She tensed and looked about as if for an escape. "Oh no, angel face," he said in a voice of whispered concern, "don't look at me like that. I'm not the one you have to be frightened of. As you can see, Garrett is not here with us. He'll be coming for you soon enough, and you can save your terror for then!"
She watched the young man with mistrust, grasping little beyond the fact that she was alone with him in a small neat room made entirely of wood. Bottled jars lined the room, ceiling to floor, kept in neat racks. A workbench and two stools sat in the middle. She did not know what to make of anything else she saw. With the exception of the bunk, it all seemed beyond description.
She flinched as he put the cloth to her forehead, but his hand was shockingly gentle. "In all my days, I've never seen a bruise like that on a girl. How did it happen?"
She ventured no reply but shook her head. She remembered everything all at once. "I fainted—"
"Hardly. You had the admirable but foolish courage to take a knife to Garrett, a thing no man I know of would try. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it possible from a girl. You were thrown from his mount, remember?"
His voice had the clear, surprising ring of breeding, edged with concern and unmasked pity. She remembered it was his hand that landed the blow to knock Tomas out. She had no reason to trust his concern, every reason not to. He dipped the cloth again and wrung it, returning it to her forehead. She stopped him with a touch, blurting out the pressing question, "Does he mean to, Oh God . . . , will he kill me?"
The touch came as a shock, her fear did not. Gayle looked from the large blue eyes to the hand on his arm, small and frail, as pale as snow and as soft as a kitten's underside. He cursed softly when he felt the slight tremble of it. It was hard to imagine that hand lifting anything more than a teacup, yet alone Garrett's own dagger. It was impossible to imagine the girl committing Edric to death.
"You are in trouble, I can't deny it." He set a clump of long strips of cloth on the small bunk and lifted one to begin binding her wrist. "Garrett has the well-deserved reputation of being one of the most dangerous men alive. I know of no man who could survive his wrath. You don't look like-"
An enormous dog barked in a whimper and jumped against the closed door, his weight slamming it open. Juliet normally nourished a great love for creatures, but her nerves were strung to the breaking point with ideas of things worse than death and she gasped, pressing back against the wall. The huge mastiff—larger than most men by weight—whimpered at her distress, cowering when Gayle ordered him gone in a tone of irritation. "Get your cowardly ass out of here, Brute!" The dog promptly obeyed, so timid he left on his haunches, creeping away like a mouse.
Gayle took her wrist and expertly bandaged it to a small wood brace, his fine blue eyes studying her intently. "Here," he reached to the table once he was finished, handing her water, "drink this." He watched as she put the tin cup to her lips and felt the cool fresh water travel down her throat. "My father is as sharp as Garrett himself, and he has the sight; he says you're as innocent as you look. Are you?"
What could he mean by that? Innocent by whose standards? Not her uncle's, but how could he ask when he had seen her with Tbmas? "Innocent or no," she cried in a frightened whisper, "I don't think I should be killed for it!"
Garrett heard the cry as he pushed open the door. She had to stop from screaming upon seeing him standing there, so tall and dark and ominous, this monster of a man haunting her nightmares. He wore no shirt or boots now, and he looked so terrifyingly strong, nothing but hard-worked muscles. She could swear the neat line of the dagger across his chest had already faded. The most dangerous man alive, he had said. The rage in his gaze alone made him so. Her situation worsened when she saw the open bottle of spirits swinging from one hand. Her uncle always drank the times he meant to beat her. . . .
He stepped inside as he said, "I already promised I'm not going to do anything so pleasant as kill you." He motioned to Gayle without a glance.
The young man stood to leave. "She can't survive long."
"Long enough, I hope. Get Tonali out of my quarters, he is wild with the blood in there."
Gayle mumbled "aye aye, sir" beneath a curse, the door shut, and she was alone with him.
Garrett leaned against the door, studying her. Those remarkable blue eyes stared back at him, her fear shimmering there in unshed tears. The silence stretched as he futilely tried to reconcile the beauty curled against the wall and the beast within. Each moment of the prolonged silence fueled her fear, the pace of her small, rapid breaths, until the fear seemed so real Garre
tt could taste it.
"Get down."
The soft-spoken command sounded like a shout, visibly jolting her. With a trembling hand she reached to her mouth as if to stop her cry. He just did not seem like a man to do another's bidding for coin. The very things terrifying her—his strength and command, the unmistakable aristocratic ring not just to his voice but in that of so many of his men too, and the intelligence shining in his eyes—all made it seem so unlikely he would abduct and torture young women for a pocket of monies. And the hate there? What lies had her uncle told him to create such hatred?
These thoughts struggled above her terror until he said with deadly calm, "I will not tell you again. Now get down."
She shut her eyes tight, fighting to comply as the image of her uncle's hand to her face swam dizzily to her mind.
Yet as she came off the bunk it seemed to her as if she moved in slow motion to her death, and she wondered wildly how the anticipation of being struck could be so much worse than the real thing. With eyes lowered, she stood perfectly still and crossed her arms tight across herself, mute and painfully aware of her helplessness.
"Come here."
Her eyes opened with brief shock and confusion, but lowered quickly again. She took two small steps forward and waited for the strike of his hand. She felt the sudden heat of his body and opened her eyes with a small startled gasp to see his dark shape towering above her. She instinctively started to fall back, but his hands coiled around her upper arms with a harsh but not painful hold as he brought her hard against his body. The shock of it went through her like a lightning bolt and she released her breath in a small surprised cry, certain he would start shaking her.
"Look at me."
She brought her eyes up. A strong hand reached to hold her face there, and he watched terror grow in the magnificent bright pools of her eyes as he leaned over and took her mouth. She froze with the unexpectedness of it, a kiss being absolutely the last thing she imagined him doing. Kisses were associated with love and Tomas, the scent of tall grass and the sound of rushing river water, with her happiness and joy. A mindless kind of confusion added to her terror and she thought she might swoon as she felt the firm warm pressure of his lips on her mouth. She knew she would swoon when he paused as if he too were confused, then gently bit her lower lip till she gasped.
He pulled back just slightly, staring down. "You kiss as though you've not a clue as to how it's done. I'm tired of this pretense of innocence. I want to meet the whore."
She heard only the last word, the name her uncle called her mother, and a small startled cry sounded as she tried to twist free. He used the moment to advantage, crushing her hard against him so that her head tilted up. Hard warm lips claimed her mouth again, and to her utter horror, she felt the intrusion of his tongue in her mouth. "Twas madness!
Never, no, never, had she imagined someone could or would put his tongue there. A silent scream rose in her throat to protest the obscenity as she now tried desperately to twist free, suddenly mindless with fright at this outrage.
It was then that she experienced the great iron wall of the power of his body for the first time. He could use none of his true strength, an ounce of it would kill her and he knew it. He exercised a shocking restraint, and still the kiss became savage, a thing he could neither tame nor control. She couldn't breathe as he crushed her against his body, stifling the struggle of her arms. She wondered wildly why she wasn't fainting as her mouth and mind, her every sense, reeled with the heady taste of his brandy, a lingering moist taste of the sea. Still there was no end to his kiss. Tension gripped her, and she remained stiff as a board until—
Until his tongue slid with tantalizing slowness over hers. A wild rush of chills exploded through her. In their wake she swooned, her body going limp in his arms. Feeling her surrender, he broke the kiss but kept his mouth dangerously close. "God, girl, I never imagined I was a man who could enjoy rape, but as you look like an angel, you taste like the heavens." His each warm, labored breath brushed her skin and she began shivering uncontrollably. "I am as disgusted as you are, but for your disgust I am only too glad. I had reason to fear you might enjoy it."
The shock of those words piled onto the shock of that kiss, and she opened her eyes to see his face filled with the emotion he proclaimed. She cried out as he lifted her effortlessly into his arms and carried her through the door. She buried her face in her hands, not understanding at all what was happening, what would happen.
She had but the fuzziest idea of rape. She had found many references to it in books, including the Bible, but never anything to say exactly what it was. She knew it was an act of violence done by a man to a woman, that it was when a man forced a woman to do whatever it was that came after kissing. Yet that, too, was a mystery to her. Her curiosity about it had pricked her mercilessly, and she had put the question first to Stella and then to Tomas. Stella, married with two young children, had been painfully embarrassed by the very mention of the subject. "Well, 'tis . . . you know, 'aven't ya ever seen the master's dogs or the pigs?" The idea had alarmed her. "You mean . . . why, you can't mean rutting?"
"Yes, like that. But 'tisn't good for a young lady to think about that till she has to—when she's married."
Tomas had been embarrassed, too, and had said the same: that she shouldn't think about it until they were married, at which time he vehemently promised her he would not demand his marital privileges very often. He and Stella made it sound so unpleasant, a horrible thing to be endured only in the hope of begetting children. All of that only confused her more. She had read too many poets who seemed, at least as far as she could tell, to exalt the act, elevating it to a religious experience of sorts. . . .
She tried to imagine him forcing her to rut with him, but no pictures formed in her mind. It seemed impossible, like purple oranges, and then terrible, like the four horsemen, a thing too awful to happen, like kissing with tongues. Her hand reached to her mouth and her heart pounded, infuriated by the very idea. . . .
Garrett brought her out onto deck. The sudden light, the fresh moist scent of the sea, made her open her eyes. Tall black masts jutted up to the sky. Her gaze darted to and fro, taking in the smooth clean boards of the ship's deck, the many men stopping to watch him pass. He carried her past the main house, housing the galley and the carpenter's room. Her small hand gripped the hard muscle of his arm, as if needing a lifeline. "We're on a ship at sea! Where are you taking me?" "To your father, before he dies." "My ... my father?" She stared at him, waiting for more words that would make it clear to her, but he watched his step as he climbed the stairs to the upper deck, moving quickly to the back, where more stairs led down to his quarters. He pushed open the door and stepped into the spacious room.
She saw not a single other thing in the room. Garrett still held her in his arms as she stared with shock at the bound, beaten, and bloodied man. Garrett's greatest moment of doubt came as he felt her tense even more, unconsciously pressing her small weight against him, as if the sight of the man could possibly be more terrifying than himself.
"Uncle!" came in a shocked gasp.
Garrett would have known the mistake had he seen Stod-dard's expression when he saw the girl, but Stoddard's wave of joyous relief passed in another sputtering gasp for breath. Stoddard knew he would not last an hour, and yet the inexpressible pleasure of seeing Garrett's gross error made the idea of death almost bearable.
Juliet's gaze flew to Garrett. "My uncle . . . what happened to ... him?"
"Your uncle?" he repeated, his voice dripping with sarcasm, stopping just short of laughing as he pulled her to her feet. After her maid identified her and she admitted to her name, knowing who he was and why he had come, after finding her wearing Edric's ring—as if she had wanted to shove it in his face—now she tried to make up a story, a witless, harebrained one at that. "Oh, now this is ripe. I suppose this means that you're not Clarissa Stoddard but her poor cousin?"
Yet Juliet was no longer listening as her gaz
e passed from Garrett to her uncle and back again as she desperately tried to make sense of her uncle sitting beaten, bloodied, and bruised in Garrett's ship. "I suppose this means you're not Clarissa Stoddard. . . ."
"Uncle, I ... I don't understand-"
"I don't think he believes you, Clarissa—" He stopped as a sudden sharp pain twisted his face and he managed, "God forbid, but if your mother could see what her betrayal reaped . . . Clarissa. . . ."
He seemed to pass out. Garrett went to the brandy set out on the table, poured a healthy shot, and came back and tossed it unceremoniously at his face. Stoddard lifted his head with a gasp but Garrett was not watching him. His gaze was on her and hers on his as she began to slowly back up. Her eyes were wide and enormous, she slowly shook her head. "There is a mistake here—"
"Indeed. The first mistake was in laying with Edric, my brother, then crying rape to your father when he caught you. Damning enough," he said easily, as she hit the wall and he stepped in front of her. The words brought vivid pictures to his mind, pictures filling his gaze with the hate and rage. "But, my lovely little whore," he spoke slowly now, "what you will pay for is listening in silence to my brother scream as your father had his men hold him down while he personally put the knife to his body."
Juliet took in each word as it was said and she knew. She saw the whole horrible thing. She shook her head, her breath coming in frantic gasps as her heart pounding madly. "Nooo ... I don't know how this has happened or what has happened, but, but I don't know your brother! Clarissa, you think I'm Clarissa? I'm not Clarissa!" She slipped from under him, dashing to where her uncle crouched bleeding and close to death. "Uncle! Uncle!" she dropped to her knees, "Dear God, tell him I'm not Clarissa-"
Stoddard stared in disbelief, sickened by her desperation to sacrifice Clarissa to save herself. Juliet watched the anger rise through his pain, twisting his bloodied face to damn her. "You goddamned whore!" he said with barely audible vehemence. "You're just like your mother! Just like that slutting, traitorous bitch ... oh God, Clarissa," he spat the name loud enough for Garrett to hear, "I only pray he does kill you—"
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