“I don’t have any letters,” Claire insisted.
His lips thinned. “Not the answer I want. Try again.”
Claire hesitated, nonplussed. How to convince him? Lips compressing, she searched his face. The look in his eyes was one she had never before encountered in any man: It was guarded, but beneath the wariness there was a lurking—was it disdain? She knew her own beauty, knew its power. She’d been dealing with it, for good and ill (and it had largely been ill), since she was in leading strings. To a man, every male she had ever met had regarded her with admiration. No man had ever looked at her as this one was looking at her now: as if she were the object of his—contempt.
Trying to fathom the why of it made her head swim—or maybe it was her physical state that was to blame for the increasing light-headedness she felt. She was so cold she had passed beyond shivering, so wet there wasn’t so much as an inch of dry skin remaining on her body, and so exhausted her legs felt as rubbery as green twigs. It required a real effort of will to stay alert, but she knew her survival might depend on her ability to respond to the opportunity of an instant. Puzzling this nightmare through, however, was beyond her.
“I don’t have any letters! I don’t! I swear to you I don’t!” Claire felt hysteria start to bubble up inside her. “If I had them I would give them to you, believe me. Can’t you see you’ve made a mistake?”
“Poppycock.” His face was implacable. His fingers gripping her arm hurt. When she made an involuntary movement to free herself, they tightened still more.
“You’re hurting me.”
Her protest was instinctive. If she’d thought about it, she wouldn’t have bothered making it. She would have assumed he wouldn’t care.
His lips thinned. Then, to her surprise, his grip loosened just enough that it was no longer bruising her arm, although he still did not release her.
That one small act of consideration could not be said to hold very much significance. Still, it was a hopeful sign in a bleak situation. She had been beguiling men, purposefully and otherwise, from her cradle. It was, her sisters said, a gift that came naturally to her. Already it had occurred to her that she might use her gift to save her life. Unlike her previous captors, this Hugh seemed almost the gentleman in some ways. She would try to touch any deep-buried chivalry he might possess.
“The letters, Miss Towbridge.”
Just as Claire opened her mouth to assure him once again that she didn’t have his letters, did not, in fact, have the least notion as to what he was talking about, the name he had called her registered. Her eyes widened as she looked at him. There, she’d known it was a mistake! The whole terrifying ordeal was the result of a gigantic error.
She felt almost giddy with relief.
“There, you see. You have it wrong. Of course I have not got your letters. I am not Miss Towbridge. I am Lady Claire Lynes.”
His eyes flickered. For a moment he seemed taken aback, and his gaze moved swiftly over her face. Then his jaw hardened.
“All right, you’ve run your length. I’ve no more patience with your lies. Disrobe.”
Claire met his steely gaze with dawning dismay. He didn’t believe her; it was quite clear.
“I am Lady Claire Lynes! I am! I promise you I am!”
Again she tried to pull free of his hold. Loosened though his grip was, it was still like trying to break free of a shackle. His fingers were long enough that they almost met around her arm, and strong enough that there was no dislodging them short of hitting them with a blunt instrument, which, unfortunately, she didn’t possess at the moment.
Holding her fast, he made a rude sound that most eloquently expressed his opinion of her claim. His mouth tightened to a sneer.
“This is a mistake, don’t you understand? I—”
“You’re wasting your breath and my time,” he broke in on her impatiently, giving her arm a little shake. “I want those letters, and I mean to do whatever I have to do to get them. If you don’t hand them over immediately, I’ll strip you naked and search your garments and then your person until I either find them or am utterly convinced they are elsewhere. And if I am so convinced, believe me, you are going to tell me exactly where they are.”
Claire was suddenly outraged. She had nearly died a dozen times tonight, and all for a mistake. A mistake that this mush-for-brains lummox did not seem to have the wit even to consider might have been made. “They are elsewhere! Have you no ears? Do you not hear what I’m saying? Very well, I’ll say it again: I am not the person you’re seeking, and I know nothing of your letters!”
“Enough.” His hold tightened again, not quite hurting her this time but allowing her to feel the hard strength of his fingers. “I have no intention of bandying words with you. You have a choice: You can either undress yourself or I will do it for you.”
Unable to break free of his grip although she tried once more, Claire glared up at him, rendered speechless by the sheer futility of continuing to insist on something that he patently did not believe and she could think of no way to prove. Even her wedding rings were missing, she discovered as she looked for them as proof that at least she was a married woman and no miss at all. Stolen while she had been unconscious in the farmhouse, she guessed, or lost to the sea. She almost stamped her foot in frustration, but her poor abused appendages were so cold that she feared the action would be painful, and besides, the gesture was far too childish for the gravity of the situation or, indeed, for a woman of her years.
If he could only be convinced that he had made a mistake, she would surely be allowed to go free. The problem lay in convincing him.
Taking a deep breath, Claire tried again, speaking forcefully, as she might to someone who was either hard of hearing or a trifle slow-witted, which, she considered, seemed to be the problem in this case. “You’ve made a mistake, I tell you: I am not ‘Miss Towbridge.’ I am Lady Claire Lynes.”
“Of the Lynes family of Sussex, I presume?” His voice was silky. The silkiness should, perhaps, have warned her.
It didn’t. Encouraged, Claire nodded eagerly. It seemed she was getting through to him at last.
“You are claiming to be a relative of the Duke of Richmond, in fact, rather than a grasping tart who has been under the protection of Lord Archer—a man old enough to be your grandfather—for nigh on a year?” His voice was satirical. “That dog won’t hunt, my girl. I should inform you that I have some acquaintance with the Lynes family—and you have approximately one minute to start taking off your clothes.”
He nodded significantly at a small, brass-cased clock affixed to a shelf above the table.
Claire gasped with indignation. “Are you calling me a—a lightskirt, you witless oaf?”
His eyes narrowed at her. “I’m calling you a lying jade. And by the by, you have approximately forty seconds left.”
Claire opened her mouth to give voice to a heated reply, looked into his face, saw the harsh implacability there, closed her mouth, and silently seethed. She had not a prayer of convincing him, she realized. Still, she tried one more time.
“I am Lady Claire Lynes, whether you choose to believe me or not.”
There was suppressed fury in her tone and in the look she gave him. Inside, she was conscious of the increased thundering of her heart as she cobbled together the rudiments of a plan.
His lips tightened purposefully.
“Very well,” Claire added in some haste, as dire action on his part seemed imminent. Capitulation was her best choice, she realized. Capitulation of a sort, that is. “Since there is no help for it, I will do as you ask. Please let go of my arm.”
“Wise choice.” His hand dropped from her arm.
Claire was able to step away from him. Unnoticed (she hoped), she took a deep, steadying breath. She was shaky, sick to her stomach, and prey to a throbbing headache, none of which could be allowed to matter. One of those opportunities of an instant had presented itself, and she had to think how best to seize it.
Instinctively raising a hand to her head in an effort to ease its throbbing, Claire touched the seeming source and found, behind her ear, a bump the size of an egg. It was amazingly tender, she discovered as she probed it. Of course, she had been hit over the head. In light of all that had happened since, she had almost forgotten.
“Head hurt?”
There was a flicker in the gray eyes that almost looked like—compunction. Of course, he—or one of his henchmen—was doubtless responsible for the blow. It was Hugh who had surprised her on the beach, she was almost sure. His tall, well-set form was difficult to mistake. James, then, or someone she hadn’t seen, must have hit her from behind.
But Hugh bore the responsibility.
“A little,” she said, frowning at him.
“I’m not surprised.”
This was said rather dryly, but without the slightest degree of regret that she could detect. Any compunction—if, indeed, she had not been mistaken about that—he might briefly have felt was now notorious for its absence. There was no longer even a shadow of remorse in either his voice or his expression. Which was, of course, totally in keeping with the kind of brute who would visit such violence on a lady.
As she considered just how she had been struck down from behind, her anger grew hotter. Claire welcomed the building blaze as a final antidote to her fear.
He slanted a significant glance at the clock.
“Your time is up.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to once again insist that he was making a mistake. But such a protestation would not move him where the others had failed, and might, indeed, provoke him to violence. Better to take the risk of implementing her plan. She had little to lose if it failed.
She lifted her chin and looked him in the eye.
“Please turn your back.” Cold dignity laced the words.
He laughed, and crossed his arms over his chest. His intention to do no such thing could not have been more clear if he’d shouted a declaration. Standing there watching her with his head cocked and his bare feet braced apart, he looked as unrepentantly villainous as a pirate.
“You would be far more believable in your role of outraged innocent had you not already offered yourself to me,” he said in a drawling fashion that set Claire’s teeth on edge. “You did say you would give me ‘anything’—from which I presumed you were offering to share your admittedly delectable charms with me, although you may certainly correct me if I got that wrong—if I let you go, did you not?”
If he was trying to embarrass her, he would not succeed. Claire scorned to reveal or even feel the smallest degree of shame. The offer had been made in desperate fear for her life, and if such an act was the price she had to pay to stay alive, she was prepared to pay it. Since her wedding, she had become thoroughly familiar with intimate congress between a man and a woman, and it no longer held any power to terrify or even move her. Quite simply, it was unpleasant but quickly over—a small trade for one’s life. One closed one’s eyes and tolerated the man’s beastliness for the few minutes it took until his business was done. If one was left, in the aftermath, feeling rather like a chamber pot, well, such was a woman’s lot in life. In this situation in particular, she could not afford to regard the act as anything more or less than a bargaining chip—practically the only bargaining chip she possessed.
“I certainly do not deny that I am prepared to do whatever I must to survive, as any sane person would. Under the circumstances, though, I no longer feel that I have any need to make such a sacrifice: I tell you, you have mistaken me for someone else.”
He grunted derisively. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. Come here.”
He reached for her. Eluding his hands, Claire took a quick step backward.
“Keep your hands off me,” she said with cold hauteur. “I’ll do it.”
Before he could reach for her again, she lifted her arms, curving them behind her head to reach for the first of the two dozen tiny jet buttons that secured her frock from its neck to just below its waist. If she’d had any intention of obeying him, undressing herself would have been most difficult. The tight-bodiced, slim-skirted traveling gown she was wearing, like the majority of her raiment, had been designed to be put on and off with the help of a maid.
But then, she had no intention whatsoever of obeying him.
Defiantly she held his gaze as she wrestled the first button free. Her fingers were clumsy with cold as she set about separating the edges of the clammy fabric.
Folding his arms over his chest once more, Hugh watched with an expression that was impossible to decipher as she slowly worked her way down the row. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice that she was also sidling backward at the same time. Or perhaps he put her backward progress down to the unceasing motion of the ship. The swaying lantern overhead and the increased creaking of the hull were ample evidence of the power of the swells; they were certainly enough to make anyone unsteady on her feet.
In any case, the scoundrel would soon discover that Claire Banning, for that was how she still thought of herself in her secret heart of hearts even so many months after her marriage, was not so easily cowed into submission. Never, until this nightmarish situation had caught her up in its toils, had she thought to be grateful for having been reared under such difficult conditions as she had experienced. But suddenly she was. If nothing else, during the course of her fearsome childhood she had learned how to survive.
Claire freed another button and felt her bodice loosen the required amount. Deliberately she shrugged, letting the neckline droop just enough to reveal the creamy tops of her shoulders and the pulsing hollow at the base of her neck. His gaze flicked down from her face to observe the distraction she had presented for him, just as she had intended. While he looked, she dropped her arms and shifted position so that she was now unbuttoning from the waist up—and she took another, slightly longer step backward.
“You might as well end this farce now, for I am not Miss Towbridge, and I have no letters. I swear it,” she said, more as another distraction than because she expected the words to finally penetrate his thick skull.
“Umm.” It was an absent sound, as if he was not really attending, which, clearly, he was not. His gaze was fixed on her breasts, molded to an embarrassing degree by the wet fabric as her posture caused her back to arch. There was no mistaking the gleam of very male awareness that had sprung to life in his eyes. Claire had seen that look in the eyes of enough men to have no doubt what it signified: He desired her.
In that instant, as she registered the raw sexuality in his gaze, she remembered too how what had begun as a briskly impersonal search of her person had deteriorated, by its end, into a shamefully intimate groping that he had, for whatever reason, abruptly terminated when his hands had begun to linger on her breasts. Perhaps her only bargaining chip had even more worth than she had previously realized: From the look in his eyes, his physical appetites were strong, and so was his desire for her.
A frisson of apprehension raced down her spine as she contemplated allowing this hard-eyed stranger to slake that appetite with her body. She had only ever had intimate congress with her husband, although, she imagined, there would likely prove to be very little difference. Between the sheets men were probably much the same. Turning over in her mind the idea of lying with this man, she swallowed convulsively—and realized that what she felt wasn’t only fear. It was fear mixed with—and she was ashamed to recognize it, or admit it even to herself—a kind of shivery sexual awareness of her own.
David had told her from the beginning that ladies had no liking for the marriage act, and she had never contradicted him. By about the third time he had lain with her, she had realized that he was exactly right. The first, shameful stirrings she had felt when her new husband had come to her in their marriage bed had been born of ignorance and anticipation and had been sadly dashed. Those seedling feelings remained her guilty secret, never to be revealed to anyone. Fortunately, they had quickly withered away.
Men got some sort of bestial satisfaction from intimate congress. Women, if they were fortunate (and she had not been, and would probably not be, given the fact that David had some months since stopped coming to her bed), got babies.
Luckily, though, she wasn’t going to be in this man’s power long enough to have to deal with her wayward body’s embarrassing quickening. At least, not if her plan worked as she hoped.
Her words seemed to register with him then, most belatedly, because suddenly he frowned and his gaze rose to meet hers. The sexual glint was gone, vanished as if it had never been. In its place was pure unyielding flint. But hide it though he might, there was no mistaking what she’d seen.
“Why don’t I believe you, I wonder?” He smiled at her, but it was not a nice smile. “You are really playing your role very well, a practiced courtesan at her seductive best, aping the blushing innocent you are not quite amazingly, but unfortunately a protracted unveiling is wasted on me. It will win you no quarter. I will have those letters, and quickly, if you value your gown.”
Even as this less than subtle threat to rip off her dress if she did not hurry sank in, the small of her back bumped up against the edge of the table, which had been her goal all along. Claire abandoned the buttons to stretch a stealthy hand along the smooth surface of the wood, groping for that which she sought.
“I must say, it’s a great pity that you’re such a fool,” she said dispassionately as her fingers closed around her prize. Bringing the pistol he had very carelessly left lying on the table up behind her back, she smiled at him in turn as she positioned it in her hand. “Were you not, I wouldn’t be forced to use this.”
Irresistible Page 7
