If someone had told him two weeks ago that he and Bouchard—a man he’d immediately wanted to kill—would enjoy each other’s company, he would have thought they were mad.
As much as Adam enjoyed the afternoons and evenings lounging, he was accustomed to physical activity and long days without any way to exercise his body would have been hellish. The second week on board he’d found a spot where he was in nobody’s way and woke just before dawn to practice fencing on the foredeck.
One of the sailors must have passed word along to their captain because Adam arrived the next morning to find Bouchard waiting for him, sword in hand.
“Captain, what a . . . surprise,” Adam said, giving the younger man the chilling look he’d found so useful at the card table. He might like Bouchard, but he’d be damned before he ever showed it. The man was the most arrogant, obnoxious, and mercurial human Adam had ever met. There was no point in stroking his ego by demonstrating anything that might be misconstrued as admiration.
“I ’ear you are up ’ere stabbing de air, my lord. I tink maybe you would enjoy stabbing me more, eh?”
Bouchard’s smirk made Adam’s hand twitch. Which made him look at his blade.
“I do not spar with real blades. The last thing I need is to kill you and have your crew toss me to the fishes.”
Bouchard thought this was hilarious. “Yes, the last ting I need is to kill you and ’ave . . . have,” he corrected, “your wife toss me to the fishes.”
They both had a laugh at that.
“It’s a pity we don’t have any practice blades.” Adam thought for a moment and then had an idea. “We have killed more than one bottle of wine between us—are there any corks around? It would do for mine.” He looked at the narrow point of his sword. Yes, one cork should blunt the end. They would need to make sure to test it frequently.
He looked at Bouchard’s sabre. “I think perhaps yours may require a few.”
The Frenchman nodded.
While Bouchard went to procure corks Adam stripped off his waistcoat and shirt and began the stretches Beauleaux insisted on before sparring.
He was midway through his final set when the younger man returned. He watched Adam until he finished and then handed him a couple corks.
“What is dat you do?” Bouchard asked, carefully slicing the first of the corks he’d brought with the sharp blade.
“Stretching exercises.” Adam pierced the cork with the end of his short sword and watched Bouchard. He’d brought a bucket of corks and was putting several down the blade. Probably a wise idea.
“Stretching exercises?” He said the last two words as if they were new to him. Which they probably were. The man’s English was good—indeed he seemed to be improving every day—but he still missed many words.
“It is so you do not hurt yourself—your body.” He saw Bouchard’s smirk, and smiled. “You can laugh now. Just wait until you are my age. You will wish you’d treated your body better.”
The Frenchman thought that was funny. “’Ow old are you?” he asked, fitting the last cork onto the sabre.
“Older than you.”
Bouchard found Adam’s attempted setdown even more amusing.
“So, we are ready, old man? Or you need more stretching exercises?”
Adam ignored his taunting and took his position, “En garde!”
The next hour was one of the most grueling of Adam’s entire life. Not even at Eton, where the goal of fencing practice had been to either behead or thrash one’s mates as savagely as possible, had he ever fought the likes of Bouchard.
The Frenchman had learned his skills while using them and his was not the style of gentlemen’s sons all over Europe. As a result, nothing Bouchard did was predictable or followed any particular style or school. If Adam wasn’t aware every second, he ended up defending to within an inch of his life. Bouchard thrived on chaos: it didn’t matter what Adam did; the man was ready to engage.
By the third morning they had a small audience, not to mention Ramsay, whose Ghost was running alongside the Scythe that day. The two ships came close enough for the baron to yell brief messages back and forth. The thrust of Ramsay’s messages was to make certain the two men weren’t trying to kill each other.
Every day they became a little more evenly matched, until it was almost impossible for either of them to score a touch.
This morning was their last bout. Adam bowed to the younger man once they’d finished, and they shook hands.
“You move good for an old man.”
Adam snorted. “And you do all right for an undisciplined savage.”
They laughed and parted ways. Adam entered the cabin to find Mia awake and eating breakfast. He dropped a kiss on her head before moving off to the bed to remove his sweaty clothing.
“What are you doing awake so early?” he asked.
“I woke up and you were not here. I decided it was not worth staying in bed.” She took a bite of toast loaded with preserves and smiled.
“I should have stayed sleeping. I daresay I’ll have bruises on every square inch of my body soon.” He turned to look at his left side in the mirror, where several dark red marks joined their blue and black brethren.
His wife made an impolite noise. “I wish you would not fight with him. You will hurt him and then he will throw us overboard.”
Adam smiled at his wife’s somewhat regular refrain on the issue of Bouchard and the probable outcome of any interaction with him.
“It is too good an opportunity to pass up. He is quite skilled in his way. I will be able to teach Beauleaux a thing or two after this.” Well, if he did not return to England in a pine box.
He didn’t tell Mia that in addition to playing cards and fencing with the man he’d also spoken to him about the danger they would face in Oran. The men they were going to try to fool were a group of hardened killers and rogues who were bent on vengeance for the man they served. The danger would be significant.
Adam had already spoken to Bouchard about Mia and his intention to leave her on board the Scythe while he and Ramsay went to the palace.
“She will not like it that you have lied to her, Exley,” Bouchard said in French as he picked up his discarded shirt and wiped the sweat from his face after one of their morning bouts.
Adam pulled the cork off his sword and re-sheathed it. He would sharpen it after their last sparring match.
“She doesn’t need to like it. It’s bad enough that she will be so close to a man who wants her dead. Tell me again what you will do after I join Ramsay.”
Bouchard pulled on his shirt and sat on one of the crates that held spare sails and equipment. He stuck with his native language for the conversation. “I will split off before we are in sight of the port and anchor off to the east of Quora’s Bluff. If Assad has some tricks planned for the Ghost at the port, you and Ramsay will have to backtrack and come to the Scythe, instead.
“The journey won’t take long, perhaps an hour or so from the palace on foot, but you might have company behind you.” He shrugged. “Let us hope Assad does not have bigger plans or other ships patrolling the area with surprises. He may already know we are coming, or he may not. He does not have the impressive network his father did. I do not think he will want to risk too much destruction. He needs money to buy more ships, not a war to sink the few he has. He wants the ransom and your wife—but he wants the money more. He will forget about Lady Exley if the situation turns into too much trouble.”
Adam tried to find his words reassuring, but couldn’t.
The Frenchman scratched at his shoulder and sighed, as if forcing himself to say something he didn’t want to. “You must tell her she is to stay here, my lord. I will keep her safe, but you must be the one to tell her it was your decision. She has already spoken several times of what she is planning when she reaches the palace.” He fingered the ornate designs on the pommel of his sabre before returning it to its sheath and looking up at Adam. He no longer used a series of corks for their
sparring. Instead one of his men had made a leather blade cover.
Adam knew the younger man was right. As much as he’d like to avoid the confrontation and simply leave, it was not this man’s duty to give explanations to his wife.
Adam looked at her now as she ate breakfast and planned for tomorrow. She was eating and watching him clean himself in the basin of hot water. She, at least, was thoroughly enjoying this enforced lack of personal privacy. Adam had to admit he did not mind as much as he’d believed he would.
He wrung out the cloth and wiped down his chest and stomach. Her eyes consumed his body and made him hard, just as they always did. She dropped her unfinished toast onto the plate and daintily brushed crumbs off her fingers. She stood before him and pulled the sash. The dressing gown slid to the floor, exposing her naked body. Her stomach had only a gentle curve, a slight sign of the life that was growing inside her. But there was a pronounced lushness to her that worked on him like a miracle tonic, and he dropped the wet cloth and pulled her into his arms, her skin warm and dry against his. Her hands went to the front of his breeches, her nimble fingers stripping him in moments while he nuzzled her neck, jaw, ear, inhaling the sweet scent of her.
“I love you, Adam,” she murmured into his chest, her mouth closing on a nipple, her clever tongue drawing a ragged hiss from him.
Adam could only hope she still felt the same way about him when he told her he would allow her no part in saving her son.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The night before they reached Oran, Adam and Mia dined alone, hopefully for the last time—at least on this journey. If all went well, Jibril would be with them for the return trip.
As much as she yearned for the return of her son, Mia had enjoyed her time shipboard with Adam. They’d become comfortable with each other in a way that was inevitable in such close quarters. Every day he seemed to become more natural around her. He didn’t even look like the same man. It wasn’t only his skin—which had become surprisingly dark during their weeks at sea, making his eyes appear even more striking—but he seemed to have grown younger. Mia attributed this to Captain Bouchard. The two men bickered like boys, constantly wrangling about cards, horses, pistols, swordplay, the weather, and probably women when Mia was not around. She’d never seen Adam so open, even with Danforth. She wondered if this was what he’d been like before his marriage and the subsequent social censure.
Tonight was their last night before incredible danger, and she resolved to make every second together count.
“I would like to show you some of the clothing I brought with me. I have several robes, one of them Jibril’s, which should fit you. They will be useful to conceal us.” She watched as he cleared aside everything other than their glasses. “I think there might be some other things you could use as well.”
He piled their dinner crockery on the tray and shoved it to the side of the table before giving her one of the slight smiles she found so infuriatingly sensual.
He patted his thigh. “Come and sit.”
She lowered herself onto his lap, proof of his desire hard beneath her. But first she wanted to talk about the next day.
“Adam, I have some things you should wear. We can make a turban for you and perhaps see if Bouchard has a djellaba if Jibril’s doesn’t fit. You cannot wear your own clothing, which will set you apart.”
His hands had begun working up her legs, the route to what he was seeking unfettered as she wore a caftan with nothing beneath it. Mia tried to think, but it was becoming more difficult the higher his distracting hands came to the top of her thighs.
“Adam . . .” she began, and then stopped when he pushed apart her legs, his skillful fingers quickly finding the part of her that would stop all thought.
His breath was hot on her ear. “We can talk of clothing after. Right now I need to touch you. Spread for me, darling.” She shuddered at the erotic command and opened to him, lying back in his arms, her body limp but exquisitely sensitive as he stroked her toward climax.
* * *
Her pleasure was the most intoxicating sight in the world to him. Her small, warm body was pliant in his arms. Adam could not get enough of her sweet face and the sensual satisfaction on it. He lifted her caftan over her head and dropped it, his eyes on the small ring in her navel. He knew it had been another man’s way of marking his possession, but it was part of her and he loved it.
He slid his hand from the wetness between her thighs to the intriguing jewel, stroking around it in a way that made her squirm and rub her tight little bottom over his cock. Her breasts were sheened with sweat and her tight pink nipples beckoned. She writhed under his mouth as he nipped and sucked, cupping a breast in each hand.
“Unbutton me, Mia.” His voice was husky against her taut bud.
She opened his breeches and grabbed him. Colorful blasts exploded behind his eyelids and rendered him speechless as she took him into her body in one long, hard slide.
He held her hips loosely as she rode him, looking down to where their bodies were joined. She knew what he wanted and pulled all the way off him before lowering herself, allowing him the breathtaking view of his shaft disappearing into her body. He thrust with all his might and she cried out, her hands gripping his shoulders while she convulsed around him.
His orgasm left him blind and he shuddered and pulled her against his heaving chest, stilling her body while his heart pounded so hard he thought it might explode.
* * *
Afterward they lay in bed, stripped of their clothing. Mia stroked his stomach because she could not get enough of the tight weave of muscles that separated his slim hips from his sculpted chest and shoulders.
He groaned. “I need some time to recover, my lady. I am an old man, according to Bouchard.”
“How unlike you to fish for compliments, my lord. Perhaps I should show you just how quickly you can recover?”
His body shook with laughter, but his hand moved down to arrest hers. “Stay, my love. I will need energy for what I must do tomorrow.”
His words sobered her immediately.
She propped herself up on her elbow and looked down at him. “Are we finally to talk about tomorrow? You have avoided it for weeks.”
He opened his eyes, and as she looked into their frozen blue depths, she knew what he would say.
“Ramsay is coming for me tonight and we will go to the port on the Ghost. You will stay on this ship, and Bouchard will anchor off Quora’s Bluff, not Ramsay. You will remain on the ship until I return.”
Even though she’d expected the words, they still robbed her of breath. He’d planned all this without her. They’d planned all this. She sat up, almost dizzy, struggling with the urge to fight and forcing herself to stay calm. No man would listen to an irate or emotional woman.
She looked down at him and opened her mouth.
He placed one long, callused finger over her lips. “Don’t argue with me, Mia. You will do as I say. Do you understand? This is not a matter for negotiation and you are sorely mistaken if you think I will change my mind.” His jaw tightened and the look he shot her was full of deep-seated anger. “I gravely regret allowing you to come on this voyage. That decision went against everything I knew to be wise. I will not act against my better judgment again.”
Mia flung herself off the bed, too angry to be near him, but unable to look away.
His face softened. “There is nothing you could do to help. Believe me when I say you would only be in our way, you would only cause me to worry.”
His quiet words were more infuriating than his harsh command had been. “You are like the sultan! Like my father! Like every man I’ve ever known!” she shouted, no longer bothering to maintain a façade of calm.
He pushed himself up. “That is an unfair accusation, Mia. I have already allowed you far more latitude than most husbands would.” He swung his legs over the bed, his expression angry and affronted.
Mia didn’t care; she wanted to hurt him.
&nbs
p; “You allow me? Who are you to treat me like I am your slave?”
“Not like a slave—like a wife. My wife. I am your husband and that is the way of things.”
“How much you must like that! I am lower even than your servants, who at least can leave your employ if they come to hate you.” Her chest was rising and falling fast, yet she could not get enough air.
He would leave her here alone and if something bad happened, she would be the last person to know. And she would be powerless to help. Just as she’d been for years.
He picked his breeches off the floor, where they’d fallen in the midst of their passion.
“Tell yourself whatever you must, my lady. You will still obey me. You will do so even if I have to leave you here in leg irons.” His voice was quiet but his movements were jerky.
She looked in his arctic eyes and sneered. “I am no better than a broodmare to you. As long as I submit to you, spread my legs, and bear your children like some ignorant sow, you will treat me well. The moment I wish to think for myself, I see what happens.”
“You are becoming hysterical. I am only concerned for your safety.”
The slight control that remained to her snapped at the word hysterical. “I am not becoming anything! You are driving me to hysteria! Is this how you drove one wife to kill herself and another to run to away?”
He’d been pulling his shirt over his head, and time froze as the garment floated down onto his shoulders. Mia closed her eyes, hoping the moment would go on forever, but she knew it wouldn’t. She would have to face the consequences of her horrible words.
She opened her eyes and found a stranger in front of her. She took a step back at the hard look on his face.
The only sounds in the cabin were her labored breathing and Adam’s quiet movements as he completed his dressing.
“Adam—”
He raised one hand, palm out. “No, you listen to me. I have tolerated enough from you on this matter. You will remain in this cabin until we depart for England. Bouchard has my leave to lock you in here if you disobey.” He buttoned his waistcoat with deliberate movements and yanked his coat from the chair where it had been draped. He shoved back his hair, still damp from their lovemaking, and took his sword belt from the closet before going to the cabin door.
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