Thief of Hearts

by Teresa Medeiros

  Fear made her reckless. “I’ve heard enough about your cowardly tactics, Captain Doom, to know your favored opponents are innocent children afraid of ghosts and helpless women.”

  A loose plank creaked behind her, startling her. If he had touched her then, she feared she would have burst into tears.

  But it was only the mocking whisper of his breath that stirred her hair. “And which are you, Miss Snow? Innocent? Helpless? Or both?” When his provocative question met with stony silence, he resumed his pacing. “Tis customary to scream and weep when one is abducted by brigands, yet you’ve done neither. Why is that?”

  Lucy didn’t care to admit that she was afraid he’d embroider a skull and crossbones on her lips. “If I might have gained anything by screaming, you’d have left me gagged, wouldn’t you? It’s obvious by the motion of the deck that the ship is at full sail, precluding immediate rescue. And I’ve never found tears to be of any practical use.”

  “How rare.” The note in his voice might have been one of mockery or genuine admiration. “Logic and intelligence wrapped up in such a pretty package. Tell me, is your father in the habit of allowing you to journey alone on a navy frigate? Young ladies of quality do not travel such a distance unchaperoned. Does he care so little for your reputation?”

  Lucy almost blurted out that her father cared for nothing but her reputation, but to reveal such a painful truth to this probing stranger would have been like laying an old wound bare.

  “The Captain’s mother was traveling with us.” Fat lot of good that had done her, Lucy thought. The senile old woman had probably slept through the attack. “The Captain of the Tiberius is a dear friend of my father’s. He’s known me since I was a child. I can promise you that should any of the men under his command so much as smile at me in what might be deemed an improper manner, he’d have them flogged.”

  “Purely for your entertainment, I’m sure.”

  Lucy winced at the unfair cut. “I fear my tastes in amusement don’t run to torture as yours are rumored to,” she replied sweetly.

  “Touché, Miss Snow. Perhaps you’re not so helpless after all. If we could only ascertain your innocence with such flair …”

  He let the unspoken threat dangle and Lucy swallowed a retort. She couldn’t seem to stop her tart tongue from running rampant. She’d do well to remember that this man held both her life and her virtue captive in his fickle hands.

  His brisk footsteps circled her, weaving a dizzying spell as she struggled to follow his voice. “Perhaps you’d care to explain why your noble papa deprived himself of your charming wit for the duration of your voyage.”

  “Father took ill before we could leave Cornwall. A stomach grippe. He saw no logic in my forfeiting my passage, but feared travel by sea would only worsen his condition.”

  “How perceptive of him. It might have even proved fatal.” He circled her again. “What provoked this timely bout of indigestion? Too much tea? A bad bit of kipper?”

  Lucy shook her head. “I couldn’t say. He was reading the Times over breakfast as he always does when he suddenly went white and excused himself. He told me later that he’d decided to travel by carriage.”

  Doom’s clipped tones softened. His footsteps ceased just behind her. “So he sent you in his stead. Poor, sweet Lucy.”

  Lucy wasn’t sure what jarred her most—the rueful note of empathy in his voice or hearing her Christian name caressed by his devilish tongue. “If you’re going to murder me, do get on with it,” she snapped. “You can eulogize me after I’m gone.”

  The chair vibrated as he closed his hands over its back. Lucy started as if he’d curled them around her bare throat. “Is that what they say about me, Miss Snow? That I’m a murderer?”

  She pressed her eyes shut beneath the blindfold, beset by a curious mix of dread and anticipation. “Among other things.”

  “Such as?”

  “A ghost,” she whispered.

  He leaned over her shoulder from behind and pressed his cheek to hers. The prickly softness of his beard chafed her tender skin. His masculine scent permeated her senses. “What say you, Lucy Snow? Am I spirit or man?”

  There was nothing spectral about his touch. Its blatant virility set Lucy’s raw nerves humming. She’d never been touched with such matter-of-fact intimacy by anyone. Smythe prided himself on maintaining the reserve of a servant and the Admiral found physical displays of fondness distasteful.

  The odd little catch in her breath ruined her prim reply. “I sense very little of the spiritual about you, sir.”

  “And much of the carnal, no doubt.”

  His hand threaded through the fragile shield of her hair to find her neck. His warm fingers gently rubbed her nape as if to soothe away all of her fears and melt her defenses, leaving her totally vulnerable to him. Lucy shuddered, shaken by his tenderness, intrigued by his boldness, intoxicated by his brandy-heated breath against her ear.

  “Tell me more of the nefarious doings of Captain Doom,” he coaxed.

  She drew in a shaky breath, fighting for any semblance of the steely poise she had always prided herself on. “They say you can skewer your enemies with a single glance.”

  “Quite flattering, but I fear I have to use more conventional means.” His probing fingertips cut a tingling swath through the sensitive skin behind her ears. “Do go on.”

  Lucy’s honesty betrayed her. “They say you’ve been known to ravish ten virgins in one night.” As soon as the words were out, she cringed, wondering what had possessed her to confess such a shocking thing.

  Instead of laughing as she expected, he framed her delicate jaw in his splayed fingers and tilted her head back.

  His voice was both tender and solemn, mocking them both. “Ah, but then one scrawny virgin such as yourself would only whet my appetite.”

  “They also swear you won’t abide babbling,” Lucy blurted out, knowing she was doing just that. “That you’ll sew up the lips of anyone who dares to defy you.”

  His breath grazed her lips. “What a waste that would be in your case. Especially when I can think of far more pleasurable ways to silence them.”

  Doom was treading dangerous waters. He’d known it from the moment he’d buried his fingers in the flaxen silk of the girl’s hair, the moment he’d inhaled the lemon-scented purity of her skin. He’d clenched the chair back to keep from touching her, but his hands had acted with a stubborn will of their own. Now he could feel the warm waters of temptation closing over his head, making it impossible to breathe anything but her scent. Her mouth maddened him, its generous contours at odds with the chaste angles of her features.

  It had been so long. Too long. He had sacrificed desire on the altar of his revenge as he had all other pleasures and emotions that might distract him from its consummation. How ironic that his first flush of victory should free that desire, render it more potent and enticing than the sweet assurance of vengeance trembling beneath his fingertips.

  When the girl had confessed her identity, he’d been unable to believe his good fortune. His initial euphoria had been dampened by suspicion. It was simply too delicious to have the girl delivered so neatly into his hands. Did he run the risk of being ensnared by his own trap? he wondered. His intense scrutiny of Snow’s past had failed to reveal information about a wife or a child. Was his captive truly Lucien Snow’s daughter or only a clever decoy? Had Snow intended her as bait to flush him out of hiding or as some sort of sacrificial lamb? He knew of only one way to find out.

  His thumbs caressed the fleecy velvet of her ear-lobes. Her skin was as soft as a lamb’s, making him wonder if she would be that malleable everywhere he touched. She made him ache with need, tempted him to live up to his reputation for sensual ruthlessness. The teak and mahogany splendor of his stolen bed seemed to beckon him as he faced the dilemma of every man who has ever had a woman completely at his mercy.

  He wouldn’t have to hurt her, he assured himself. He could be gentle, persuasive. He would leave her wi
th no bruises, no marks on her pretty skin, only haunting memories of a phantom lover who had possessed her in darkness and vanished at dawn.

  “Please,” she whispered as if she could divine the dangerous direction of his thoughts.

  “Such charming manners,” he murmured, thankful he could not see her eyes. He feared a sheen of tears in them might ruin all of his wicked intentions. “Tell me, Lucy, what do you plead so prettily for? Your life?” He wove his fingers through her hair, making her captivity absolute. “Or your soul?”

  Her soft words surprised him. “Perhaps your soul, sir. It will be the one at stake if you commit some grievous sin.”

  His bitter laugh made her flinch and he immediately gentled his grip, stroking his fingertips across her brow. “Have you forgotten? I’m a dead man already, untroubled by qualms of conscience or soul.”

  “The soul is eternal, Captain. And I suspect yours isn’t as black as you’d like me to believe. Yet.”

  Doom’s gaze lingered on her lips. Generous, treacherous, tormenting him with the memory of a time when he had craved justice more than revenge. A time when he could still tell the difference.

  If he bedded this girl against her will, he’d be no better than his father, who had won his mother’s love, then sailed away forever, taking the light in her eyes with him. No better than the nameless man who had gotten her with child and left her to die in squalor.

  Frustration made his voice crisp. “Your concern for my soul is touching, Miss Snow, but if I’d have wanted a sermon, I’d have abducted a priest. I should have skipped the blindfold and gagged you instead.”

  Doom suspected her eyes might prove to be as great a hazard to his dormant conscience as her lips. Those lips were parted now, gone slack beneath the probing ministrations of his fingertips. She was as responsive as a kitten to his practiced touch, making him wonder how she would respond if he pressed his suit, how she might move beneath him, what sort of soft, broken sounds she would make.

  He swore under his breath. He might deny himself the bounty of her body, but he’d be damned if he was going to forfeit a taste of her luscious mouth. He leaned over and gently rubbed his lips against hers, feeling their sensitive contours ignite like dry tinder beneath an unquenchable flame. His tongue traced their tantalizing softness, priming them for his tender invasion.

  A fist pounded the door. “Seventy-four-gunner approaching from the north, Captain.” The imperturbable calmness of his mate’s voice only underscored the terrible urgency of his message. “Channel Fleet, sir. Flagship Argonaut.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  DOOM STRAIGHTENED, BITING OFF AN oath. He gazed down at the girl’s treacherous lips, still parted and glazed with the mist of his folly. He regretted keenly that there was no time to find out if she was half as skilled a whore as she was an actress.

  He cursed himself for nibbling at the succulent bait, giving Lucien Snow all the time he needed to hook him with the Channel Fleet. For one black moment he was tempted to surrender his last shred of decency and swallow her whole so he’d at least have a shuddering spasm of ecstasy to compensate him for his trouble. But as he gazed down at her trembling lips, one question nagged at him.

  What if he was wrong?

  What if the Retribution had simply blundered into the Argonaut’s course? What if the girl had never been intended as bait?

  What if she were innocent?

  Either way, he could hardly afford to indulge his ravenous appetites while his ship waged open warfare on one of the Royal Navy’s seventy-four-gun flagships. The Tiberius, primarily an escort vessel, had been easy prey, surrendering without a fight. The Argonaut would not succumb so readily to his forced seduction.

  “Shorten the sails and heave to,” he commanded.

  His mate had never before questioned an order. There was puzzled silence from the other side of the door, then a hesitant “Aye, sir,” before his stealthy footsteps moved away.

  Counting on the elements of mist and mystery to buy him time, Doom drew a knife from his pocket and knelt to saw at the girl’s bonds.

  Lucy flinched, jerked out of her sensual daze by the burn of cold steel against her skin. Her lips still tingled from their brief, tantalizing brush with sweet disaster.

  Doom wielded the knife with expert skill. The muscular breadth of his shoulders brushed her inner thighs as he squatted between her knees. His warm fingers encircled her ankle, bracing it so he could slice away the ropes.

  He paused briefly to rub circulation back into her chafed wrists. “It seems we’re about to entertain uninvited guests. Friends of yours?”

  She snatched in a shaky breath. “No, but I suspect them to be enemies of yours.”

  “Who isn’t?” The weary resignation in his voice disturbed Lucy more than she would have cared to admit.

  He jerked her up, but her numb feet refused to support her. She collided clumsily with his chest and he was forced to catch her around the waist to keep her from falling. They hung suspended in time, lips almost touching, breath mingling, bodies meshed in a dangerous harmony that rocked Lucy’s staid world to its foundations.

  Possessed by a compulsion beyond the restraints of caution, her hand crept blindly upward to explore the forbidden planes of his face. He drew in a sharp breath, but did not stop her. Her fingertips brushed the rough silk of his beard.

  The ship lurched as it came about, throwing her away from him.

  Flung back to sanity by the creaking protestations of his vessel, Doom caught her by the arm, more roughly this time, and jerked her toward the cabin door.

  Lucy had no choice but to stumble after him, her fate sealed by his unyielding grip. They raced through the belly of the hold, the walls brushing her shoulders at each tortuous twist and turn.

  She gasped in surprise when Doom’s strong hands closed around her waist and lifted. “Duck,” he commanded, shoving her up and through a narrow opening.

  She obeyed, having no way of knowing if she’d just avoided rapping her head or losing it. As she was cast from the shelter of the hold, wind gusted around her, plastering her gown to her body and making her teeth chatter. When Doom emerged behind her, she could not resist pressing herself against his solid warmth, thankful for once that he was more substance than spirit.

  Fresh shivers raked her as his arms enfolded her from behind. “Silly chit,” he muttered into her hair. “Girl as smart as you should know better than to get kidnapped in your nightdress.”

  Puzzled, Lucy opened her mouth to ask him what he meant calling her perfectly respectable gown a nightdress, but he had already grabbed her hand and was dragging her toward another part of the ship. A strange exhilaration seized her. She felt as if she might race blindly at this man’s side forever, into danger, into darkness, into the buffeting wind that snatched away her breath and whipped her hair across her cheeks.

  Was this the wicked legacy of her mother, she wondered, the sinful weakness of the flesh the Admiral had always warned against? Or was it simply the surge of primitive excitement all sailors felt before storming into battle?

  She tuned her ears to hear the Retribution’s crew preparing for conflict. She heard nothing but the ghostly wail of the wind and Doom’s boots pounding along the deck.

  “Your crew?” she dared to shout over the wind. “Where are they? I can’t hear them.”

  “I fear you’ve caught us making do with a skeleton crew.”

  “Rather appropriate for a demon captain, is it not?”

  Doom’s sure steps faltered and Lucy stumbled into his back. Catching both of her hands, he dragged her beneath some sort of shelter where the wind whistled instead of roared, and collapsed against something solid. She realized with a shock that he was laughing.

  His hand cupped her cheek with more tenderness than she would have believed possible. “Ah, Lucy, I do believe I’m going to miss you when you’re gone.”

  A muffled shout carried across the water. Doom stiffened. Reversing positions, he shoved her to a crouch
.

  “Stay here,” he commanded. “Don’t move or make a sound. Not one step. Not one whisper.” Then he was gone, leaving her shivering against the damp wood.

  He was obviously a man accustomed to being obeyed. Such was his authority that Lucy cowered there for several minutes, head spinning and heart aching from his abrupt swings between tenderness and threat. Then his ominous words began to sink in.

  I’m going to miss you when you’re gone.

  Her voice of logic, which sounded suspiciously like the Admiral’s, whispered, You’ve been abducted by a ruthless pirate, Lucy. Where might you be going?

  Cornwall? Chelsea? Heaven?

  It made no difference how nice he smelled or how rich the timbre of his laughter. The man was going to murder her. And there she squatted, blind and passive, like a dull-witted mouse waiting patiently for the return of the tomcat who would devour her.

  Stiffening with anger at her own stupidity, she reached up and dragged off the blindfold. The sea air stung her raw eyes. For a moment all she could see was more darkness, wavering through a veil of tears. She blinked them away to find herself tucked into the shadows beneath the foreboom.

  A man stood less than three yards away, gripping the starboard rail, his broad back beneath its ivory shirt presented to her. Black breeches hugged his lean flanks, tapering into knee-high jackboots of polished leather. At the sight of him, Lucy’s heart thundered so loudly she was afraid he might hear it.

  Hidden from view by the billowing shadow of a sail, he was watching the Argonaut inch along beside them to investigate what must appear to be an abandoned vessel. The mighty cannons of the navy flagship dwarfed the graceful schooner, yet Doom held his ground with no sign of fear, his patience more dangerous than a lesser man’s actions.

  Lucy knew what she must do to save herself. Easing her fingers into her stocking, she drew out the letter opener, clenching the handle to keep it from sliding in her damp palm.

  He was a murderer, she reminded herself. A thief. A merciless cutthroat. He’d been on the verge of ravishing her when the other ship had appeared, of proving her as weak and sensual a creature as her French mother had been. Doom turned away from the rail. A ray of moonlight pierced the racing clouds.