“But Captain Danvers—”
“Would want me to do all I can for his crew. Mr. Markham is his first mate and the rest of the men are my friends and yours. He would wish for them to get the best care possible.” She turned to Doctor Stevens. “How can I assist you?”
“Do you know how to sew?”
“Yes.” It wasn’t her favorite pastime, but she was capable and had mended sails.
“Then finish up with this patient while I check on Mr. Markham.”
They switched positions. A man, naked to the waist, sat on a stool before her, a bleeding gash half-stitched closed on his upper, muscular chest. She had never sewn flesh or done so on a live person. Her patient gulped from the bottle he held in his hand. He lowered it and then swiped his forearm across his mouth. “Go ahead, miss. I won’t feel a thing.”
She swallowed hard and rolled up her sleeves. She glanced at Mark. The color had bleached from his face. “You don’t have to stay.”
“The captain says I am to remain with you, so I will.”
Mark would make a great seaman. He possessed great faith in his captain and obeyed his every command. She tried to and knew she must if she worked on a ship, but she didn’t have it in her to obey another person without questioning them. Maybe it had to do with being the youngest and the only girl. The need to rebel against her brothers’ tyranny. They looked down upon her and refused to allow her to do anything on her own. They didn’t believe in her.
“What is your name?” she asked the seaman.
“James, miss.”
“Well, James, I will try to be as gentle as possible.”
“I know you will, miss. All women have a fine, soft touch. Not rough like Doctor Stevens.” He forced a smile to his weathered face that revealed a missing front tooth.
Reassured he had faith in her ability, she picked up the needle. Staring at her trembling hand, she inhaled a few deep breaths of the warm, odorous air caused by too many unwashed bodies, blood, and fear. The quaking quieted but she rocked from the rough seas. This was the right moment. She pierced the seaman’s skin and grimaced as it sank through his flesh. She glanced at James’s set face as he stared at the opposite wall and then continued, striving to make her handiwork as perfect as possible. Too many ugly scars already littered his body; she didn’t want to add one more.
“I’m finished, James.”
His stoic gaze dipped to the wound consisting of two different types of stitches. “Thank you, miss. It didn’t hurt a bit.”
Arianna flashed him a shaky smile. “I’m glad I could be of service.”
At least, to someone.
She turned to Doctor Stevens. “How is Mr. Markham?” She stumbled to Andrew’s side where a flimsy blanket covered his naked form.
“He has a nasty bump on his head, and he hasn’t regained consciousness. With such cases, it could go either way. He could recover and be fine or never wake up and die. We will have to wait and see. Other than that he has a few minor cuts and bruises.”
Another man staggered in, his arm hanging at an awkward angle. The surgeon hurried over to assist him to a chair.
“Miss Pemberton, tend to Mr. Markham’s cuts while I work on Thomas,” the surgeon called to her as he began to examine the seaman who screamed in pain a few seconds later.
Arianna gazed down at Andrew’s lifeless, white face and brushed his hair back from his scratched forehead. “Andrew, you have to wake up. You can’t die.” He had been kind and solicitous to her when she was hurt and scared. Now, she intended to repay the favor.
Planting her feet, she wrung out a cloth left in a bowl by his bedside, then gently rubbed it over his wounds and his upper half. Should she venture lower? She turned to the surgeon, but he was busy with other patients. If she was to assist him and make her way on her own in this world, she couldn’t be squeamish about such things. After all, she had five brothers.
But had never seen any of them naked.
She inhaled deeply and rinsed out the cloth again. She would start at his toes and work her way up. She would decide what to do about his private area when she reached it. Folding the blanket up, she washed his feet and legs and dried them.
Did she dare go further? Curiosity warred with propriety.
As an assistant to a surgeon she would be expected to view every aspect of the male anatomy. She wiped her hands on her pants. What was there to be nervous of? He was unconscious. He wouldn’t attack her.
She lifted the blanket and tilted her head to check for cuts and her first view of a—
“Arianna?”
She dropped the blanket as if it scalded her and stared at a dripping wet Morgan. He was alive and safe and standing in the doorway. Her heart leaped with joy.
“What are you doing?”
A guilty, hot flush spread up her neck into her face. “Helping Doctor Stevens with his patients.”
His gaze flicked to Andrew and then back to her. “And what were you doing to Mr. Markham? Were you taking advantage of him?” One dark brown brow rose.
“N-no. Doctor Stevens asked me to clean his cuts. And his body. S-so he is comfortable.” She flipped the blanket over Andrew’s legs and feet and smoothed out the wrinkles, keeping her hands busy to avoid looking at Morgan.
Morgan entered the room and stood opposite her with the table between them. “I thought I told you to stay in my cabin.”
“I did.” She nodded her head toward Mark talking to an injured seaman. “You can ask him. I didn’t leave until I heard the mast crash, and then I saw the men carrying Mr. Markham. I had to find out how he was.”
She refused to tell Morgan that what sent her flying from the cabin was she feared for his life and longed to know his condition.
Morgan’s gaze lowered to Andrew. “How is he?”
She pulled the blanket up to Andrew’s chin. “Doctor Stevens doesn’t know. He has a lump on his head, and we have to wait and see if he regains consciousness.” Tears flooded her eyes. “He could die.” She brushed them away with the back of her wrist and swallowed. “How are you? You’re not hurt?”
He waved her question aside. “I’m fine.”
Deep lines of fatigue carved his stern face but no cuts or scratches marked it, except for rivulets that ran down his forehead and cheeks from his soaked hair. With an impatient hand, he slicked it back. Dark circles marked the area beneath his eyes. Rain beaded on his lashes above. The rest of him looked whole and healthy. She longed to wrap her arms around Morgan and keep him with her. Safe.
“You should eat, take a hot bath, and sleep.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. The storm is still raging.” A fierce light of determination sparked in his eyes. He scanned and took note of the fallen men. “I came to see how Andrew and the rest of the men are. I have to get back.”
Her gaze fastened on his sturdy neck as a drop slid down the rugged, tanned skin. She yearned to lap it off. To taste his salty flesh.
She blinked.
Where had that thought come from?
“But you are exhausted.”
“I’ve survived worse.”
She was sure he had. He could overcome whatever he set his mind to. She had never encountered a man with such determination, courage, and strength of will.
And kindness and tenderness and thoughtfulness.
His dark gaze caught and clung to hers, his lips softened, and he started around the table toward her. Her heartbeat raced and her pulse pounded, yearning to feel his body next to hers. Against hers.
And then as if remembering something, his brows drew together, his lips pressed into a straight line, and his face darkened. “I have to return to the quarterdeck.” He pivoted and started for the door, stopped, and turned to face her. “I don’t want you to go anywhere except this cabin or mine. Do you understand?”
Disappointment lodged in her heart. She nodded.
****
Beyond weary and freezing cold, Morgan trudged to his cabin, expecting to find it empty. The room would be quiet, dull, and lonely without Arianna’s scent, her chatter, and the sound of her inconsequential movements, but his men needed her more than he did. Andrew needed her. He had to continually remind himself her life would be better with Andrew as her husband. She was not for him. He was already promised to another.
But he couldn’t shake off this desire for her.
Usually if a woman attracted him, he sampled her charms and the addiction vanished, but Arianna’s actions and words convinced him she was a virgin, and he couldn’t ruin her. He wouldn’t take her maidenhead before her marriage. He would not do that to his best friend and her. He pushed open the door with stiff fingers and shuffled into the silent cabin, failing to stifle a huge yawn, his eyes half closed.
“Let me help you off with those wet clothes.”
His head whipped around. “What are you doing here? I thought you were nursing Andrew.”
“There isn’t much I can do for him at the moment, and Doctor Stevens is with him.” Arianna pulled the sleeves of the tarred coat down and off his arms. “The bath water isn’t as hot as it once was. I thought you’d be down sooner.”
She hurried to the door and opened it. “Mark,” she yelled. The boy appeared as if he had been waiting, which he probably was. “Captain Danvers needs more hot water.”
“Aye, miss.” He hurried off to do her bidding.
“You are soaked to the skin.”
Morgan couldn’t believe she was here with him. That she was stripping off his clothes. Her dainty, capable hands brushed the sensitive flesh of his stomach and then his back as she pulled the hem of his shirt from his pants. His body heated. His manhood hardened.
Her fingers shifted to the waistband of his breeches. He covered her warm, slightly trembling hands with his own. “I’ll take care of those.” Relief drifted across her face. He would never be able to restrain the urges that flashed through him with her fingers near his penis. He wished to keep her hands enclosed within his, but released them.
His curiosity grew as she pushed the chair behind his desk into the middle of the floor.
“Sit.”
He obeyed. Why was she being so solicitous? She should be with Andrew, but he couldn’t form the words to discourage her kindness. He enjoyed it too much. He fantasized she was his wife, this cabin a room in their house, and her actions part of their daily life.
Arianna knelt before him, and his mind ran wild. His manhood screamed for release. But she only lifted his aching leg and, resting it in her lap, yanked off his boot, stripped off his wet sock, and then did the same with the other foot. She rose, picked up his boots, and placed them neatly at the end of his bed.
Mark rushed in with two buckets of steaming water and poured them into the hip bath. “I’ll be right back with more.” He hurried out.
“Time for you to warm up.”
He was hot already.
“I’ll get you dry clothes.” She whirled from him and busied herself in the drawers beneath his bed.
He ogled her lovely backside and imagined the things he could do with her in that position. Smothering a groan, he ripped off the rest of his clothes, leaving them where they fell and stepped into the water. He sank into the relaxing depths and leaned against one end, struggling to leash his raging desire. Only then did Arianna rise and spin with a linen shirt and brown breeches in her hands. She laid them out on the bed, snatched up his discarded garments, and dropped them by the door.
Mark trudged in with two more buckets. Careful not to scald him, Mark poured the contents into the bath. The water heated to just the right temperature.
“Mark, please take Captain Danvers clothes to be cleaned and dried. I’ll call when he is ready to eat.”
“Aye, miss. I’ll tell cook to have something ready.”
Arianna sauntered toward him, her hips perfectly outlined and swaying in the tight pants, her full breasts bobbing. She grabbed a cloth and the soap she had left on his mahogany desk and knelt beside the hip bath. “You don’t have to move a muscle anymore today. I will wash you.”
His heart raced, and his penis pulsed, standing straight up, harder than it had ever been. Did she know the torture she enacted? He should refuse her assistance, but his mouth wouldn’t work.
She wet the soft cloth and rubbed it against the soap with small, swirling motions, her finely formed hands sensual in their purposeful movements. His hunger for her increased by the second. Arianna laid the cloth on his neck and tenderly stroked up, down, and around before traveling to his chest. As she plopped the cloth into the water to rinse it, a few drops jumped to the blue shirt she wore. The wet material clung to her breasts and revealed sections of the rounded skin. He feared his cock would spear the surface and scare her.
Her eyes glowed with wonder as she concentrated on her actions. The cloth drifted lower. Anticipation built.
“Sit up, so I can wash your back.”
Devastation and disappointment struck. He had longed for her fingers to curl around his manhood and slide up and down the shaft. But he obeyed her command. He closed his eyes as he hunched over his knees, allowing her full access. The searing lust increased, sweeping deep within his muscles, digging into his soul.