“Oh, no!”
“Oh, yes. Now the Reb knows that this ain’t the time and place for a fight, so he tries to sneak past them—runs up a British flag and just sails on. But the second ship sees that one of the masts has been snapped and he looks at her real close and can see that she’s been in a fight. So he flashes to her to identify herself and explain her condition. Well, Hampton signals back that he had been mistaken for a Yankee ship by a Confederate raider. ‘Which one?’ signals our ship. ‘The Artemis,’ he signals back—well, that’s the name of his own ship, and of course the Union skipper is hot to go after it and goes sailing off in the direction Hampton tells him. Hampton would have gotten clean away if he hadn’t had bad luck. One of his engines conked out on him, so he was just limping to port. And meanwhile, our second ship crosses paths with the first and realizes that it was the Artemis he’d been talking to. So he goes tearing out after him and manages to catch him because Hampton was so slowed. Well, Hampton was the better skipper and he did some fancy maneuvering, but his ship was crippled and he ran out of shot. And so we got him.”
“Bravo!” said a deep voice behind them, and Katherine and Teddy spun around. Matthew Hampton stood in the doorway. “You tell it as if you’d been there, lad.”
“I’d like to have been.”
“Well, I’ve brought you an errand to run, boy. Mr. MacPherson has grievous need of a certain sort of nail, and it seems there are none to be found in the yard.”
“A broadhead, no doubt,” Katherine said and sighed. “We’ve had terrible trouble getting them since the war started.”
“You’re absolutely right. And since Mr. MacPherson thinks they might not sell any to one of us,” he lifted his hands to show his chains and grinned bitterly, “he wants you to run down some for him.”
“All right.” Teddy jumped off his stool and bundled himself into his coat and woolen cap, eager to spend some time outside instead of cooped up in the office. He ran out the front door. Hampton closed it behind him, then turned to face Katherine.
She felt a sudden twinge of fear. His hard, masculine presence seemed to fill the room, and she was all alone with him. She forgot that only an hour before, he had seemed thinner and almost ill to her; now she noticed only that his rolled-up sleeves revealed well-muscled arms, that he was poised like an animal about to spring, that his hands were large and strong.
To hide her apprehension, she said calmly, “Are you the same Hampton that Teddy was talking about?”
“I am, and his tale is mostly true.” His face was expressionless, but there was an odd glitter in his gray eyes.
“Hadn’t you better return now? The guards will think you have escaped.”
“I’m not unused to being in disfavor with the guards.”
“I’m sure you’re not!” she snapped.
He laughed, but there was no amusement in his eyes. Slowly he started toward her, the litheness of his walk marred by the clinking chains. Katherine gulped and retreated a little.
“Captain Hampton, my father is in his office; I think it would be very unwise of you to try to—to—”
“To what? Touch you? Kiss you? Caress that sanctified Boston skin?” His voice was low and harsh, and Katherine stepped back before the force of it. “I know you’re lying, Miss Devereaux. I’ve watched, you see, and I know your father never returns from his lunch until two-thirty and it’s only one-thirty.”
“Well, Charlie will be in shortly, and he’d kill you if you touched me,” Katherine said, edging toward the door of her father’s office. He stood between her and the outside door; she knew she could not reach that. But if she could just get inside her father’s office and lock the door…
Deliberately, menacingly, he came toward her, his eyes never leaving her face. “That old drunk? Peljo told me he’s been on a binge for two weeks and hasn’t come to work. And your Yankee lieutenant has vanished also. Tell me, did you freeze him out?”
Katherine backed away, cautiously feeling for the doorknob behind her. “I’ll scream if you touch me.”
“The yard’s a fair distance—and very noisy. I doubt they’ll hear you. And, believe me, I can muzzle you rather quickly.”
Suddenly she jerked open the door and darted inside and swung the door behind her. But despite his encumbering chains, the captain was quick, and before she could lock the door, he had turned the knob and pushed the door open so violently that she stumbled back against her father’s desk, painfully striking one hip against the sharp corner. She looked at him, frightened almost past thought now, as he coolly closed the door and turned the lock. Desperately, she backed away from him, her eyes fixed in terror on his face. She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from him; she remembered reading somewhere that there was a snake that fixed its victim with its magnetic gaze, holding the frightened creature transfixed until the snake lashed out and killed it. Finally, her back touched the wall, and suddenly he was on her.
His muscled hands held her arms against the wall above her head, and he pinned her to the wall with his own hard body. No man had ever touched her before, at least no more than a hand under her elbow or a fervent handclasp. Certainly no man had ever pressed his hard, lean body into hers. She gasped with the indignity, and he chuckled, his breath ruffling her hair, and moved his body against her.
“Are you trying to crush the breath out of me?” she said tartly, determined not to admit her fright. “I shall have ‘C.S.N.’ imprinted on my stomach from your belt buckle!”
He leaned back his head and roared with laughter. “What an absolutely indelicate thing to say, Miss Devereaux.”
“I’m too angry to be delicate,” she snapped.
He looked down at her, his eyes roaming her face. His gaze rested on her lips and he said huskily, “Have you ever been kissed, Miss Devereaux?”
“I certainly don’t intend to tell you!”
He squeezed her wrists. “Answer me.”
“Yes!”
He eased the pressure on her wrists. “Good and thoroughly kissed?”
She blushed and said primly, “I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” he said, and his lips descended on hers.
It seemed to her as if he wanted to devour her mouth, for his lips crushed hers, forcing them apart. She struggled indignantly against him; never had she received more than a chaste peck on the lips. He was bruising her with the violence of his kiss. Suddenly his tongue darted into her mouth, and she gasped in surprise. What was he doing to her! Her mind reeled; it was barbaric: the kiss seemed to go on forever, his tongue probing, caressing. Then his tongue retreated and the pressure of his lips lightened, and she thought he was through, but he did not end his kiss, only buried his lips in hers once again. It was a shock again, though less this time, but she felt dizzy and faint with his kisses. Would he never stop? His hot breath seared her cheek; his mouth seemed to suck all of the breath out of her. Then suddenly his mouth left her.
“Please,” she said shakily. “Let me go; I can’t breathe.”
He buried his face in her hair, his lips against her ear. “That’s the idea, my dear,” he said huskily, and his breath on her ear sent the most startling shivers through her abdomen. “Then we take off your stays so you can breathe.”
“How dare you—” she gasped, and he chuckled.
“All proper to the end, aren’t you, Miss Devereaux?” He nuzzled her neck. “I can feel the fire inside you. Someone should have taken you long ago, ridden you good and hard and with a firm hand, like a temperamental mare. Softened you, made you burn with passion, and you’d have turned into a fiery, loving creature. Instead of the cold bitch you are today!”
“Why you—” she fumed, unable to think of anything horrible enough to call him.
His hands slid down her arms and they fell numbly to her sides. Then boldly he moved his hands down her, his face staring mockingly down at hers. Roughly he touched her breasts, slid his hands along her stomach and a
bdomen, then back up. Suddenly he groaned and pulled her to him, encircling her with his chained arms, and again he kissed her roughly. He crushed her against him; she could feel the violent pounding of his heart against her chest, feel the hard masculine strength of his body pressed against her. Abruptly he stopped and she sagged against him, feeling dizzy, weak.
“I could take you right now. Do you realize that?”
She nodded weakly.
“I don’t intend to—at least at the present.” He lifted his arms from around her, but grasped her by the shoulders, his fingers digging in painfully. “I only want you to know that I can defeat you. Even though I am in chains, I am a man; I can conquer you. You may be able to have my back lashed, to have me thrown into a dark hole for two weeks on a diet of moldy bread and water—”
Her eyes widened and she started to speak, but he dug his fingers into her more harshly and said, “Shut up; just listen. You may be able to have me punished for ‘insulting’ your ladylike ears. But I can still possess you, bend you, force you to submit. Your wealth, your position, your frozen attitude can’t protect you from me.” His words came out in short hard bursts; he was panting as if he had been running. “Remember that. If I decide I want you. you’re mine.”
He released her and turned, strode across the room, unlocked the door, and left. She sagged to the floor; her knees had turned to water. “My God,” she said, pressing her hands to her face. “Oh, my God.”
She ran into the other room, threw on her cloak and bonnet, and flew from the office.
Chapter 4
“Miss Kate? Are you all right? Miss Kate?” Pegeen called through the bedroom door.
Katherine had entered the house and rushed upstairs to her room as if pursued by all the demons of hell. Once inside the safety of her room, with the door securely locked, she had collapsed into her rocker. Alarmed, Pegeen had come to see about her, only to find the door locked. Katherine sat numbly in the chair, not even noticing that she hadn’t removed her cloak and hat
“Yes, Pegeen,” she roused herself to answer. “Please—just leave me alone. I’ll be all right.”
Leaning back, Katherine slowly began to rock. Her mind was a jumble of discordant, disconnected thoughts. His breath against her ear. The clean male scent of him. The slightly salty taste of his lips. She clapped her hand to her mouth. Did men really kiss women that way? Would a gentleman kiss a lady that way? No, surely not. It was awful, degrading. No doubt that was why a Southerner was considered not to be trusted around a woman. They grabbed you and pawed you and kissed you and—and what? Then they raped you. It was what Boston matrons whispered about when they thought you couldn’t hear them. But they wouldn’t tell you because you were an unmarried girl. It was what he had threatened. But she didn’t really know quite what it was.
It must involve kisses like that, consuming, devouring kisses—and it must involve that hot, peculiar feeling in her stomach. Rape was related to what a man did to you on your wedding night, she knew, but being a proper Victorian girl, she had never been told enough to ask what that was either—and certainly no one had told her. One went to bed with a husband; husbands could kiss one—but did they kiss like that? She couldn’t imagine it. So that sort of kiss must be how rape was different. If he raped her, her life was ruined—that much she knew. She wouldn’t be received in polite society; she would be shut up here forever with Aunt Amelia, ashamed to show her face! And she would have a baby; that was always the awful consequence.
Tears began to stream down her face. Why did he want to hurt her? Why should he hate her so much as to want to ruin her life? They had hurt him—whipped him and put him in a horrid cell by himself. And apparently he thought she was the one who had persuaded them to. But why did he think she would do such a thing? And why—why did the thought of his eyes, his husky voice, his strong, brown hands, create this trembling warmth in her? Bewildered, upset, she collapsed into tears, the sobs wracking her body.
For two days she didn’t go to work, claiming that she was ill. She spent the two days in turmoil. What was she to do? She would quit work, she decided. Papa would be upset, of course, and her life would be sheer boredom, but anything would be better than having to face him again, having to live in dread that he might attack her. At other times she would burn with anger that he should think her capable of such vindictiveness as to have him beaten just because he had been rude and insulting to her, and she would decide to go right down to the yards and inform him that he was wrong about her. But what did it matter what he thought of her? His opinion was not of the least importance to her. It would be so cowardly not to go back; she had never backed down from a fight before. She had to return—she couldn’t let him think that he had won.
Then, unbidden, images would creep into her mind—she would picture him being lashed and almost cry out at the horror of it; she would feel once again his lips on hers, and she would become restless and begin to pace her room. If only she could talk to someone about it! But there was no one. Aunt Amelia would probably faint; any friend of hers would be as unknowledgeable as she; Pegeen would be afraid for her and only urge her to tell her father. And Papa—well, she couldn’t tell him, for he would straightway have Hampton punished. And no matter what he had done, she could not bear the thought of his being whipped again. “At least I,” she thought fiercely, “am not one to beat someone because I have them in my power.”
During the afternoon of the second day, there was a knock at her door, “Miss Kate?”
“Come in, Pegeen.”
Pegeen opened the door and popped her head in; her eyes shone with excitement. “Oh, miss, Lieutenant Perkins is here to see you.” Pegeen was not one to be fooled by Katherine’s story of being sick. Love troubles—that was her diagnosis; and she believed it all to be due to the unfortunate lieutenant who had called over three weeks ago and not returned. She knew for a fact that Henry Stephens or the Miller boy wouldn’t send Miss Kate into such a high snit. So it was bound to be the lieutenant, and though he wasn’t what Pegeen would have chosen for her—too somber by half—she wanted Katherine to have whomever she wanted. Therefore, Pegeen had almost cried out with joy when she saw the lieutenant standing at the door.
“Oh, really?” Katherine brightened. “I’ll be right down.”
“He’s in the drawing room, miss. And,” she added conspiratorially, “Miss Amelia is upstairs taking a little nap. It’s a good thing I opened “the door. That stuffy old Simmons would have sent word up to her.” Pegeen, with a large, strict Catholic family, knew how difficult it was to get a little time alone away from nosy relatives.
“Thank you,” Pegeen.” Katherine patted her hair into place and straightened her collar, then went down to greet her caller.
He was standing by the fireplace when she entered, and she walked over to him, extending a friendly hand. His eyes lit up—she seemed lovelier to him than ever—and he grasped her hand tightly.
“Well, Lieutenant Perkins, I never expected to see you here again,” she said teasingly.
“What? Did you think me that cowardly?” He smiled down at her. The nearness of her, the faint rose scent, made him suddenly aware of how much he wanted her in his bed, and he flushed slightly at the thought.
“There are brave men who will run at a spinster aunt’s inquisition.”
“Well, I am not one of them. Unless, of course, you wish me to discontinue.”
“No, not at all.”
“I am sorry that I have been absent so long, but just after I was here, I received word that my father died.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She laid a sympathetic hand on his arm.
“Thank you. I went to Nantucket on leave, of course, and have just now returned. Unfortunately, my ship sailed last week, and so I have been temporarily assigned to headquarters again.”
“How terrible for you. I’m sure the time at sea would have been of great comfort to you.”
“You are very perceptive, Miss Devereaux.”
“No, thank you.” He paused. “I—I hope you won’t think it presumptuous of me, Miss Devereaux, but I worried about you a great deal while I was gone.”
“Worried about me? But whatever for?” Here was just the sort of calm, sensible person to tell her problem to, she thought. Only he was a man, and of course she could never speak to him on a matter so delicate.
“I thought of you down there at the yards, particularly with those Rebel prisoners. It’s just not a safe place for you. Now, don’t mistake me—I think you’re a very brave and courageous lady. I know how you feel, and I am not criticizing you at all. But still it is dangerous. So I got you a little present.”
“Oh, Lieutenant, I couldn’t accept a gift—”
He smiled. “Now don’t be hasty. Wait until you see it.” He reached into his pocket and then held his hand toward her. A little snub-nosed silver handgun lay nestled in his palm. “It’s not candy or flowers, but it is more useful, don’t you think?”
“Why, what a funny little gun!” Katherine cried.
“Yes, it’s made to be carried tucked away in some little place where it won’t be noticed. There are gamblers who carry them up their sleeves where they can drop them quickly into their hands in case the game gets unfriendly—excuse me, I know I shouldn’t tell a lady about such things.”
“Oh, no, please, it’s quite all right. And you think I should carry one. But where would I keep it?”
“Make a little pocket for it in your muff. Then if you are accosted, you can just pull your hand out of the muff—with this gun in it.”
“As long as I’m outside.”
“Well, yes, but your father and Charlie and Teddy are there in the office to protect you.”
“But I haven’t the slightest idea how to use a gun.”
“Well, this is a gun that’s used in close situations. It would be hard for you to miss—and he’ll know it. Now let me show you how to load and fire it.”
Gregory, Lisa Page 6
