Yet as the gig cut through the black water of the harbor, he couldn’t help but wonder why the Irish girl had even been aboard the frigate. Unlike Hendricks, he didn’t believe her to be a paid doxy; besides, no doxy would have shielded her breasts with her arms, as the Irish girl had. No, she was probably some orphaned waif who’d accepted a coin or two from his crew in return for making his life hell.
No doubt, he thought on a sudden intuition, the “whipping” had been carefully staged, too!
His jaw tightened. Why hadn’t he seen it before? She probably was working for the crew, a party to their malicious attempts to rid their happy ship of her newest commander. No doubt they’d all spent the day laughing their arses off over his complete and total humiliation!
Christian’s fingers began an agitated tattoo against the gunwale. Laugh, would they? Bugger the lot of them! There’d be hell to pay after this, by God!
He had worked himself into a fine, fuming rage by the time the gig nudged against Bold Marauder’s hull, a dark wall that loomed above them like a small fortress. As the coxswain hailed the frigate, Christian looked up, saw the ship’s yards and rigging silhouetted against the starlit sky, and—wonder of wonders!—movement near the entry port.
“The devil take me,” he muttered. Finally, a proper ceremony for the captain as he boarded his command.
His spirits lifted, ever so slightly, and despite his aching leg, his sore groin, and his wounded pride, he almost smiled.
Until he hauled himself through the entry port and saw what awaited him.
No.
It couldn’t be.
But it was. Lieutenant Ian MacDuff, decked out in that ridiculous Scottish cap and plaid, standing at attention with a single, foolishly grinning marine—Evans—smartly presenting arms.
“Welcome aboard, sir!” Ian beamed, and before Christian, flabbergasted and shocked, could call a halt to this lunacy, the Scotsman tucked his bagpipes under his arm, slammed his elbow into the bag, and, grinning at the loud, droning hum that blasted forth, shoved the mouthpiece between his lips.
“Dear God in heaven,” Christian murmured. And then he forgot the events of the day, his dread of the inevitable nightmare, and even the girl who awaited him in his cabin as the first ear-shattering notes came bawling out of the bagpipes at a volume loud enough to drown out everything but his own agony.
“Enough, Mr. MacDuff!” he yelled, over the noise.
His face puffed up and red with effort, Ian, launching into a tune that might—with a little imagination and a lot of brandy—have been “Rule Britannia,” never heard him.
“By the grace of Almighty God, stop!”
Christian waved his arms in a final attempt to get his lieutenant’s attention—then swiftly turned and beat a hasty retreat aft.
Ian raced after him, crestfallen. Leaping over a coiled line, his eyes filled with hopeless despair, he cried, “Sir, wait! ’Tis trying I be, honestly!” He shoved the mouthpiece back between his lips and, catching the last sigh of raucous air as it exited the bag, took up where he had left off.
“Hendricks!” Christian yelled over his shoulder. “I cannot for the life of me imagine a more ghastly sound!”
“What?”
“I said—oh, go on with you. I’m going below!”
“What? I can’t hear you!”
There was no point in trying to be heard. His ears ringing, his head pounding, Christian dove to the hatch, ducked beneath the low deckhead beams, flung open his door—
—and was nearly decapitated by the sword that came singing out of the darkness to slam into the bulkhead just beside his ear.
Chapter 6
She’d missed.
Oh, dear, I’ve done it now, Deirdre thought wildly.
In the faint glow of moonlight, she saw the English captain stumble back against the bulkhead, momentarily dazed by the viciousness of her unexpected attack.
Then he came for her.
Deirdre fled behind the table. “Get away from me!”
“Come here, foundling.”
“I said, get away from me!”
He stood unmoving, every muscle tensed to spring, his face almost unholy in the glow of the lantern. Raw terror paralyzed her, for even in the gloom she could see the glint in his eyes, the harsh set of his unforgiving mouth, and the anger in his stance—anger he held barely in check.
Deirdre’s gaze cut to the door, looking for escape.
“Really, my dear, I have no intention of doing you the harm you mean me.”
He feinted to one side, Deirdre dove to her right—and smashed directly into his chest. It was like hitting a solid wall. She panicked as his arms closed around her. With a cry, she drove her foot down on his toe and lunged for the door, knowing she’d never make it in time.
He caught her as her hand hit the latch.
“Filthy English dog!” she raged, fighting him. “I’ll see ye dead!”
“And I’ll have some answers from you if it damn well kills me!”
“Good, I hope it does!” She kicked out at him, but he only hauled her, kicking and screaming, across the cabin. His face was an icy mask of determination, and he didn’t stop until he’d dragged her into the separate sleeping compartment. There, with a lack of dignity that stung her already wounded pride, he picked her up and tossed her across the bed, his eyes blazing as her shirt, far too big for her, gapped open, baring one of her breasts to his gaze.
Angrily, he grabbed a blanket and flung it over her. “Cover yourself, doxy!”
Deirdre, unwilling to accept anything from this man, flung the blanket aside. “I am Irish,” she said proudly, her eyes glittering and defiant, “but I am no doxy!”
“You will forgive me if evidence leads me to conclude otherwise.” His eyes narrowed. “Now tell me, which of my crew of reprobates and rogues is responsible for smuggling you aboard this ship in an attempt to beguile and irritate me?”
“None of them! I came of my own accord!”
“You lie.”
“Even if I did, I’d see ye in hell before I’d tell you!”
“Then have a good look, because I’ve been in hell these past five years . . . and now—“ his gaze dropped to her exposed breast —“I would like a taste of heaven.”
She froze. He leaned down and lifted one black, spiraling curl. Despite himself, and his efforts to prevent it, his gaze dropped again to her skewed shirt, and the bare curve of her breast, pale in the lantern light, that she had refused to cover. Something stirred, deep inside of himself, and he took a deep and steadying breath—
But then Emily’s face appeared in his mind’s eye, her eyes accusing, and the fire in his blood cooled as quickly as it had flared to life. Anger, swift and savage, filled him, and, desperate to hold on to something he hadn’t felt in over five years, he plunged his fingers into the doxy’s snarled hair and lowered his mouth toward hers. She tried to twist away, but his thumb caught her jaw, forcing her to still, and before he could help himself, he was claiming her lips in a hard kiss that was meant to prove something to himself far more than it was ever meant to do the same for her. She whimpered deep in her throat, her struggles only fanning his determination to drive away the devils that had tormented him for so long—and to affirm that he could still, by God, function as a man.
Her struggles increased. Christian was no brute. He abruptly released her, shaken to his depths by what she had awakened in him, and turning his back, wanting only to put distance between himself and her, stalked away.
It was a mistake, and he knew it even as something slammed into the nape of his neck with an impact that sent him to his knees; a moment later, he found himself on his back, the girl’s knee driving into his belly and the short black nose of his own pistol just inches from his startled eyes.
His blood turned cold.
There was an ominous click as she brought the gun to half cock. This can’t be happening to me, he thought. He, who’d survived Quiberon and countless naval battles, stor
ms at sea, and other perils that made up the everyday life of any sea officer. He—about to die at the hands of a crazy young woman? But no, this was all too real. It was, indeed, happening. He swallowed, not daring, even, to breathe.
Her hand shaking, she brought the gun closer to his face. Behind it, now so close that he could smell the spent powder from previous firings, he could see that her eyes were cold and hard.
“For thirteen long years,” she said, pushing her hair off her forehead with trembling fingers, “I’ve waited for this moment. Thirteen long years, I’ve waited for the chance to kill ye.”
Christian stared into the deadly black mouth of the pistol, his mind racing over a short list of long-forgotten paramours whom he must have unwittingly spurned. He wasn’t in the business of breaking hearts, but then, maybe his memory wasn’t as sound as he’d thought it to be. Not surprising, given his current predicament—
“Thirteen long years, Lieutenant, to avenge the terrible wrong ye did me and me family. . .”
Cold metal touched his forehead—and then he heard the mad skitter of nails as Tildy shot from off the bed and across the cabin toward him. In a single, swift movement, the girl jerked the pistol around—
“Don’t!" Christian cried hoarsely. . .
—and swung back to face him, her eyes panicky.
He swallowed hard, and shut his eyes. “. . . Hurt my dog.”
“What?”
“Please . . . don’t hurt my dog.”
The girl’s mouth fell open and she stared down at him in confusion and astonishment. Slowly, shakily, she lowered the gun.
Christian let out his breath and closed his eyes.
And Deirdre, still straddling the English captain with her knee deep in his abdomen, felt her blood go cold as the awful reality of what she had almost done, flooded her.
I almost killed a man.
The gun was suddenly a horrible, wretched thing, and she put it down, recoiling from it and feeling suddenly sick. The dog, whining, had fallen upon the captain, licking his face in a frenzied display of love and devotion. He did nothing to push the animal away, instead, wrapping his arms around the squirming little body and hugging it close, apparently more concerned with the dog’s welfare than his own. Deirdre stared down at him in frustration, confusion, and self-disgust. She had failed miserably in her self-appointed mission to avenge her brother, make good on her promise to her mother, and do honor to the proud blood that ran in her veins.
Granuaile, who would have had no trouble dispatching an enemy, especially a hated English one, wouldn’t be proud of her, now.
“Thank you,” she heard him say, beneath the dog’s soft whines.
“For what?” she spat scathingly. “Not killin’ ye?”
“No . . . for not hurting my dog.”
Hysteria, insane and unexpected, rose up in her and it was all she could do not to let out a bark of laughter as she got to her feet. “I was wrong to come here,” she said, as the captain got to his feet, the little dog safely cradled in his arms. “I’m leavin’.”
“It is nearly midnight, madam. Despite your seeming appetite for violence, I am adverse to setting a young woman loose in the streets of Portsmouth at this hour. You will remain here until the morning, at which time I will gladly see to your request.”
“I will not stay here with ye!”
“That choice is not yours to make. But do not fear, you are quite safe, I can assure you. You have my word as a gentleman that I will not avail myself of your charms, delightful and dangerous though they may be.”
“You think I’d believe the word of a dirty, thievin’ Englishman?”
“Probably not.” He eyed her dubiously, retrieved the blanket he’d tried to give her earlier, and offered it to her once more. This time, she grudgingly accepted it. “Oh, don’t get me wrong,” he added. “I would like to see what you offer, if only to prove to myself that I can still enjoy a kiss, a touch, a tryst, as much as the next fellow . . . but I daresay that would be a most ill-conceived idea, given our present feelings toward each other.” His voice was suddenly rough and unguarded, and he turned abruptly away. “You see, I loved a woman once . . . but she was taken from me in the cruelest way imaginable. Love has no place in my dead heart, and lust, no place in the disciplined order of my life.” He looked at her then, his eyes dark and haunted. “Therefore, you are quite safe with me.”
He moved away from her, cold and aloof once more, and she wondered if the brief vulnerability she had seen—or thought she’d seen—in his eyes, had been nothing more than a trick of the lantern light. “Tomorrow I will set you ashore,” he said. “But tonight, you will sleep in my bed. Alone. I will take my rest on the bench seat in my main cabin. Do not hesitate to summon me if you need me for any reason.”
He picked up the little dog and moved behind the canvas screen.
Leaving Deirdre alone.
Chapter 7
It was nearly midnight, several hours later.
While their captain had faced his admiral’s wrath, the crew had worked all day to replace the damaged spars and rigging suffered by the collision with Admiral Burns’s flagship and now, exhausted but triumphant over the earlier debacle, sat around a table in the wardroom, laughing over the embarrassment they had caused their new Lord and Master.
The door opened.
“Mr. MacDuff, sir?” The youngest of the frigate’s three midshipmen poked his head into the crowded wardroom and then darted inside, shoving through seaman and officers until he came to Ian. The big Scotsman sat on a sea chest, polishing his bagpipes with a square of linen and half watching a card game that took up the entire table.
Ian glanced up, scowling. “Hugh, laddie! ’Tis past your bedtime, and there be things in here ye shouldnae be seein’!”
But little Hugh’s eyes had already found the thing they shouldn’t be seeing, and gaping at the scantily clad woman who sat atop Milton Lee’s knee, he managed to blurt, “Captain’s compliments, and he requests your presence in his day cabin!”
“Uh-oh, you’re in for it now,” Milton Lee predicted darkly, sliding a hand up the doxy’s thigh. “The admiral’s probably taken the Lord and Master down a peg or two and now he’s looking for someone to put the blame on.”
Skunk roared with laughter and dealt a new hand of cards, the movements of his arm sending a cloud of stench across the table and making those nearest to him gag. “An’ looks like yer that someone, Ian!”
“Aye, fine job you did, getting us under way this afternoon,” said Russell Rhodes, smirking as he leaned against one of the twelve-pounder cannon that competed for space in the wardroom.
“And a fine job you did, my handsome lieutenant,” the woman purred, sliding from Lee’s lap and sauntering across the cabin to Rhodes. She touched his arm, letting her nails drag up his sleeve while she tilted her head flirtatiously and stared into his eyes. “Hiding me down there in your brig . . . such a perfect place for a friendly liaison, no? Why, I can’t wait”—her husky voice dropped to a rich, throaty whisper—“to have you all to myself!”
“Delight, please, have me first!” cried Midshipman Hibbert, grinning foolishly and sweeping off his stained and dirty hat.
As the room erupted into laughter, the woman turned her bold gaze on the fourteen-year-old, letting it drift slowly down his filthy, wrinkled uniform and toward his groin, until young Hibbert’s pink cheeks began to turn red. “Why, Hibbert, cheri, I just love young boys . . . their energy is so tireless, their enthusiasm so refreshing, no? But I think I shall wait till tomorrow . . . and then eat you for breakfast!”
Hibbert went scarlet. Raucous guffaws split the small room and Skunk clapped the midshipman across the back. Only the beardless Arthur Teach, who’d spent the better part of the evening sulking in the corner, did not join in their laughter. Now he sat sullenly polishing a tomahawk, taken in trade from an Indian chief he’d once met in the American colonies. The blade glittered dangerously in the lantern light.
&nb
sp; “What, have ye no comment tae make, Arthur?” Ian prodded, getting to his feet and twirling his bonnet on his thumb. “Nothing tae say about our new Lord and Master?”
The seaman looked up, his eyes black with menace. Slowly, he ran his finger down the flat of the tomahawk’s blade.
“I’ll kill him,” he vowed softly.
Nobody moved. Skunk exchanged nervous glances with Ian. Hibbert paled and looked at his feet. Even the yellow-haired woman paused, her hand going still on Rhodes’s arm.
Outside, the winter wind blew ominously around the hull.
The young midshipman finally broke the heavy silence. “Er, Mr. MacDuff, sir?” he squeaked, moving fearfully away from Teach. “The captain’s waiting. And, begging your pardon, sir, but he’s in a foul temper.”
“Aye, as I expect he would be,” Ian murmured, frowning. He raked a hand through his thick red hair, donned his cap, and prepared to face the music.
###
Unable—and unwilling—to sleep, Captain Christian Lord sat in his day cabin, thinking about the girl in his bed such a short distance away. He was trying, unsuccessfully, to take his mind off her by reading Bold Marauder’s log under her previous captain when the thump of Evans’s musket on the deck outside announced the arrival of Ian MacDuff.
He shut the leather-bound book with a snap and looked up. The Scotsman, framed by the swinging deckhead lantern behind him, stood at the door, nervously twisting his bonnet in his hands.
“Do come in, Mr. MacDuff.”
Bobbing his head, the Scot entered the cabin, aware of the raw disapproval on his captain’s face as he took in his outlandish attire. Ian had worn his plaid in defiance of Navy regulations and in proud display of his heritage, but now, under that frigid scrutiny, and without the backup of his fellow miscreants, he felt rather silly. Especially with his blue uniform coat thrown haphazardly over the whole thing and his knees, sprouting red hair, peeping out from beneath.
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