“Come on, Eliza,” he coaxed, trailing kisses across her cheek, her jaw, and then up to her ear. “Come on,”
he breathed into her ear, causing her to squirm at the untoward feelings that roused in her belly. “Direct some of that fiery temper of yours at me now.”
How dare he mock her! Yet Eliza could not deny that the fear she had of being raped eased enormously at his beguiling tone. It was almost as if he wooed her.
His tongue traced the patterns of her ear and she gasped at her inexplicable reaction to such a strange touch. “Stop. No—don’t do that! Oh …”
His mouth returned to hers with the same devastating effect. But though he easily could have forced entrance between her parted lips now, he did not. One of his hands still tangled in her hair, and the other wound around her waist. Though her hands were free to oppose him, they didn’t. One of her palms pressed against his solid chest. The other gripped his upper arm.
“So sweet,” he murmured the words against her mouth. Then he licked her lips, wetting them before capturing them once more.
Eliza’s lips were opened to him. There was no way she could pretend they were not. Her entire body had turned pliant at his touch, and … and willing.
The remnant part of her rational mind demanded that she break away. Yet another part of her marveled at the wondrous sensations building up inside her. And at his astounding restraint.
He was making her willing, the rational part realized. Just as he’d warned, he was making her willing.
But she shut out that irritating voice as she rose to answer his kiss. One of her arms wrapped about his neck, and as if that signaled her full acceptance, he finally deepened the kiss.
The feel of Cyprian’s tongue filling her mouth, sliding along her incredibly sensitized lips, was unlike anything Eliza had ever known. The voluptuous quality of such unlikely behavior must surely be wicked, she vaguely determined. If it was all right to feel these astonishing
sensations all over her body, someone would surely have spoken to her about it before now. But they hadn’t and so she concluded it must be wrong.
Still, that line of reasoning did not prevent her from pressing up on tiptoe to have more of that feeling.
Cyprian obliged by slanting his lips, fitting the two of them even closer together. His tongue delved deep, sliding in and out in a rhythm that generated the most disquieting feelings inside her. There was an urgent rhythm to his kiss that managed to infect her until her entire being seemed to pulse with the same rhythm. Then his hand slid down from her waist and over her derriere, and deep inside her a veritable fire leapt to life.
He pulled away from their kiss but she pressed up to it. This time she stroked the seam of his lips with her tongue. He opened to her tentative foray and she grew bolder. He lured her tongue all the way into his mouth, teasing and taunting her, as if they were two combatants in a duel. She knew he was far beyond her in ability, but that didn’t prevent her enthusiastic participation. When he pressed his knee higher between her thighs, however, until she practically straddled his upper leg, and his hand curved around her derriere from the back to meet his knee, she pulled her head back in shock.
“You must … you must stop,” she murmured breathlessly.
“You first,” he retorted, seeking her ear with his lips.
She shook her head, trying to avoid the undermining impact of his hot breath on her sensitive neck. But he found the tender skin there anyway, and in mindless reaction she moaned and arched nearer.
“God, woman.” He bit the words along her neck and raised her higher on his knee until her feet left the floor and she was forced to cling to him as her only support in a world tilting right off its axis.
“Let me down,” she protested, even as she pressed her belly against him.
“As you wish.”
Before Eliza realized what he was about, she was flat on her back on his lavishly upholstered bed. And he lay above her!
“No! Let me up!” she protested, trying frantically to twist away. But she was caught between the deep feather bed and his solid weight, and tangled in her own skirts. She tossed her head wildly, seeking to avoid the kiss she was certain would follow. “Let me up,” she cried, truly terrified now.
“Let you up. Let you down. Make up your mind, Eliza,” he answered, a half-smile on his face.
From fear to fury that half-smile propelled her. How she wanted to claw it from his handsome face! But though he didn’t let her up, neither did he try to kiss her again. He just held her down and studied her. Waiting for her to exhaust herself and give up, she suspected. Waiting until she no longer had the strength to fight him.
Her struggles subsided at once. She stared back at him, at his dark face just inches above her own, and she perversely thought of Michael. Michael was a gentleman. He would never behave this way toward her. Michael was more handsome as well, as if a golden aura surrounded him, while this man … if Michael was the sun, Cyprian Dare was the storm, violent and threatening.
Yet the look in his eyes right now was not threatening, but rather triumphant. Smug, and amused.
“I’m so gratified that you find this amusing,” she snapped in the most scathing tone she could manage.
His grin came out full force. Was that a dimple in his left cheek?
“Any other maiden would be dissolving in tears by now. Why aren’t you weeping—at least a little?”
Eliza swallowed hard. Why indeed? The truth was
that she hardly ever cried. She supposed she’d never had reason to in the past, and it hadn’t occurred to her now. If it made her appear braver than she actually was, however, perhaps that was good.
“Is that your goal? To make me cry?”
He shook his head slightly and a sensual expression took over his face. “Actually, no. My goal is to …” He trailed off but the glint in his vivid blue eyes made his intentions clear.
“You cannot make me willing,” she vowed, ignoring the fact that he’d already done so, and awfully fast. She felt his silent chuckle against her chest. “Get off me,” she muttered, shoving at him.
To her utter shock—and immense relief—he complied. He rolled to the side, though he kept one arm across her waist to keep her still. Then he propped up one elbow and studied her. “Would it help if I plied you with pretty words?”
“Since plying me with wine didn’t work as well as you thought it would?” She glared at him, conscious of the warm weight of his arm across her ribs. Just beneath her breasts.
“Oh, but it did work. I thought you kissed me with quite commendable enthusiasm.”
“I did not!”
“You put your tongue in my mouth,” he taunted, bringing his face closer to hers. “How sweetly and seductively you slid it in.”
“I … I was thinking of Michael then. My fiancé,” she added, relieved for such inspiration. When his features stiffened, she plunged on. “I only endured your unwelcome attentions by imagining you were Michael.”
Her disparaging words had the desired effect—at least somewhat. For whatever his amorous intentions had been, they faded at her deliberate insult. Unfortunately his vengeful nature rose to fill the void. Though
he stroked her cheek and pulled one tangled strand of her hair free and smoothed it upon the silken coverlet, his dangerous mood was apparent in the chilling silence that followed.
“For all your facade of good manners and polite conversation, you and your kind possess a cruelty not found among common people. Perhaps you need to be taught humility every bit as much as your uncle does.”
He trailed one dispassionate finger along her neck, down to the low neckline of the blouse and beyond, all the way down, between her breasts to her stomach. Her breath caught when his hand splayed wide across her flat stomach and rested there, but her heart thundered as if it would explode. His amorous teasing was of less threat, she realized, than this terrifyingly calm anger.
“There are few options open to women. Ruined women,” he added.
“So … so you intend to ruin me?” Her words were barely a whisper, so effectively had he managed to intimidate her.
He smiled, a cold grimace that made a mask of his harshly handsome face. “Could you survive it, I wonder? Would your family disown you? Would your upstanding Michael still want to marry you?”
Eliza did not know the answer to that, and her doubt must have shown in her expression. For Cyprian sat up then, a bitter smile of triumph twisting his lips.
“Enough of this.” He stood and ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair. “I’m hungry.” He extended a hand to her and then, when she flinched away, took her hand anyway. He drew her to her feet and with a slight shove pointed her toward the table. “Serve me my dinner. From now on that shall be a part of your duties. Keep my quarters neat. Tend to my clothes. All the domestic tasks you’ve had an army of servants to manage for you in the past.”
When she would have protested he raised one black
brow in arrogant reminder. “Your good behavior assures your cousin’s good treatment, Eliza. In the coming weeks we shall determine just how dedicated a guardian you are, won’t we?”
“Y
ou were gone so long,” Aubrey complained when Eliza finally returned to her tiny cabin. The door stood open between their two rooms and he’d clearly been waiting for her, propped up in his narrow bed.
“Yes, well, I’m sorry. I would much rather have been here with you. But … but I couldn’t,” she finished as she sat down beside him. “Have you had your dinner?”
“Yes, but Cook said I had to earn my keep. He made me work in the gattey—that’s what a ship’s kitchen is called, you know. I had to chop onions and potatoes. The onions made my eyes burn and I almost cried from it. But I didn’t,” he added boastfully.
“Are you all right?” she asked anxiously. She studied what she could see of him beneath the sheets, his dark uncombed curls, his dirty face, and his wrinkled night shirt. “I heard you had a splinter.”
“Yes, but I got it out myself with Cook’s little knife.”
Eliza grimaced. “I bet it was filthy,” she muttered.
“I wiped it on my sleeve first.”
“Oh, that’s just wonderful,” she retorted.
Aubrey frowned. “What’s the matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with me! What’s the matter with me?” She lurched to her feet and began to pace, gesturing furiously with her hands. “Oh, I’ve just been kidnapped,
that’s all. And by the way, in case you haven’t noticed, so have you. We’re stuck in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on this stupid ship with a bunch of … of … of heartless pirates!”
Aubrey drew back and a frightened expression covered his face. At once Eliza regretted her outburst. She should not be ranting at him, for it was hardly his fault. No, it was Cyprian Dare’s fault. Every single bit of it.
She crossed back to Aubrey, sat down, and drew him into her arms. “Don’t be afraid, sweetheart. Everything will turn out all right in the end. You’ll see.”
The boy burrowed into her arms. “Do you think Father will rescue us?”
“Of course he will.”
“But how will he ever find us?”
“I’m sure Cyprian—the captain,” she amended, “will send word to him.”
“But how long will it take?”
How long indeed? That was something Eliza was afraid to speculate about. But she could hardly tell a child that. It was her duty to protect him and to keep his spirits up. So she did the only thing she could. She lied. “Not long at all, dear. Not long at all.”
He sighed, then disentangled himself from her arms. “The food here is not nearly so good as at home. Too salty.”
“Is it? I hadn’t noticed,” Eliza replied. The dinner she had shared with the
Chameleon’s
difficult captain had been frustrating, infuriating, and frightening. But salty? She honestly could not remember.
“It’s because all the meat is packed in barrels of salt,” he informed her, not noticing her distracted mood. “There’s two kinds, salted pork and salted beef, all in barrels. Oliver showed me.”
“Oh, he did, did he?”
“Yes,” he replied, oblivious to her sarcasm. “When he carried me to the galley he showed me.” Then he
frowned. “I wish I had a pair of shoes. The men all stared at my foot.” He began to wriggle both his feet back and forth beneath the bed cover.
“If anyone of them says anything unpleasant to you, Aubrey, you just tell me. I’ll take care of them.”
“It’s all right, Eliza. Oliver looked after me. He made the others show me
their
scars. Did you know that Oliver has two scars on his belly, right next to each other? He got them in two different fights.” He jabbed at the air as if he held a dagger in his hand, then grunted twice in feigned agony. “Oliver is first-rate, don’t you think?”
Eliza grimaced in distaste. “First-rate? Well, I suppose so. A first-rate thief. A first-rate liar.” Then when she spied his crestfallen expression she relented with a sigh. “Don’t mind me, Aubrey. I’m just tired, that’s all. And more than a little frustrated by our predicament.”
He resumed the rhythmic fluttering back and forth of his feet. A week ago he’d not had nearly that much flexibility in his injured foot, she realized. “So tell me,” she said. “Why do you think Oliver is first-rate?”
“Well, first off, he knows everything about ships and sailing. Did you know that each sail and each rope on the entire ship has its own name? And he can run right up the riggings as quick as the monkeys I saw at the bazaar at Charing Cross,” he exclaimed.
The glow in his eyes was more than excitement, she glumly realized. It was hero worship. Master Aubrey Haberton, heir to a wealthy Baron, had as his idol a flippant sailor—very likely a pirate, she feared. Considering the future Cyprian Dare forecast for the child, however, perhaps Oliver
was
a good role model, the ironic thought occurred to her.
“Right up the riggings,” she echoed. “I hope you don’t get any foolish ideas, Aubrey.”
He grinned, an excited expression that she hadn’t seen on his face since … since before his accident during the summer. Eliza straightened a little from her
perch on the side of his bed and peered suspiciously at him. “Aubrey.” She stretched out his name in a warning tone. “What is going on in that devious ten-year-old mind of yours?”
His face immediately turned innocent—except for the dancing light in his merry eyes. “I was just thinking that my foot is getting stronger, that’s all. Climbing the riggings is mostly a matter of strong arms, anyway. If I cannot walk so well, nor ride, at least I could learn to climb riggings.”
“Don’t you dare!” she exclaimed in horror. “Why, you could fall and hurt yourself even further. Or worse, you could drown. You could tumble into the sea and drown!”
“Oh, ballocks,” he scoffed. Then he clapped his hands over his mouth as if he’d said something he shouldn’t.
Ballocks?
she wondered.
“Now you listen to me, Aubrey Haberton. Oliver Spencer is a charming rogue, but a rogue nonetheless. If I should discover him tempting you to dangerous adventures—”
“He fancies you, you know.”
“What?” Eliza drew up in surprise. Then she rolled her eyes. “Oliver fancies every woman alive, or so I’ve been informed.”
“Well, that may be. But he likes you far better than all the rest. Truly.”
“He said that?”
“Well, no,” Aubrey admitted. “But he asks all these questions about you, all the time. Things I don’t even know the answer to.” He eyed her speculatively. “What is your favorite flower anyway?”
Cyprian stood on the quarterdeck just above the pair of rooms occupied by his two captives. He took a long pull on his cheroot, then tossed the remaining fragment
into the crisp wind. It was getting cooler. In a matter of days they would put in at Alderney. Then what would he do with the troublesome Miss Eliza Thoroughgood?
A murmur and a faint giggle drifted up from their rooms. Clearly neither she nor the boy suffered so greatly that they could not wring some pleasantness from their situation. The irony, he thought sourly, was that he should be celebrating triumphantly but could not.
He’d been so eager to take the boy, so sure of the satisfaction it would bring to capture Haberton’s heir. But the boy’s cousin—the prim and luscious little guardian—had thrown him completely off-kilter. He ought to be feeling victorious. Elated. But all he felt was frustrated and restless. Why had he allowed her to stay? And what was he to do with her, anyway?
He grimaced at that. He knew what he wanted to do with her. But then what? Put her ashore in Devon with sufficient funds to hire a coach home?
He ran his fingers through his dark hair. You’d think he was no more than a randy youth, the way she roused him. No better than Oliver. “Bloody hell,” he muttered. “Bloody, bloody hell.”
Xavier glanced up from his perch on a coil of rope. But he didn’t say a word. He knew better.
Oliver, however, was not so wise. One side of his mouth curved up in a smirk. “Somebody’s feelin’ a trifle horny, I’m thinking.”
Cyprian glared at him from beneath lowered brows. But the fierce expression that would have silenced the young man a week ago did not work so well this evening. For Oliver met his captain’s lethal stare with a belligerence Cyprian had never seen on his former cabin boy’s easy-going countenance.
“Is there something you wanted to discuss, Oliver?”
The younger man poked his tongue into his cheek,
clearly considering his words. Then he cleared his throat and spit over the rail.
“The thing is, Miss Eliza’s a lady, not some doxy to play fast and loose with.”
Cyprian held himself very still. “I hadn’t known you recognized the difference.”
Oliver jerked to his feet. “I bloody well know the difference. Better than you, it seems. And I won’t let you hurt her,” he finished, his hands clenched into fists.
“Jesus, God,” Cyprian swore under his breath. What had ever possessed him to keep the bloody wench on board? Not only was she interfering with his plans and wreaking havoc on his famous self-control, now she was creating dissension in his crew.
“I have no intention of hurting her. So you can shed the white knight image you’ve been cultivating of late.”
“But you
do
intend to seduce her,” Oliver maintained, his outrage not in the least abated.
“And your intentions are more noble? What are you planning, to marry the troublesome wench?”
As soon as he said the words, Cyprian regretted them. If Oliver hadn’t considered that possibility before, it was patently clear he did so now. The boy’s belligerence fled as the idea took hold in his head, and Cyprian groaned out loud.
Hearing his captain’s reaction, Oliver frowned. “Eliza’s not the sort you fool around with; she’s the sort you marry. Xavier married Ana, so why can’t I marry Eliza?”
“First tell me, why would
she
ever agree to marry
you?”
“Well, love, of course. People who love each other get married. Look at Xavier and Ana,” he pointed out once more.
Cyprian’s initial anger at Oliver faded beneath the young man’s simple explanation. For all his rough upbringing, he was, at least on this matter, a complete
innocent. Oliver’s famous accomplishments with ladies in ports up and down the Atlantic coast had been matters of uncomplicated lust. This girl, however, seemed to touch some deeper chord in the lad.
Cyprian sighed and began to pace, and his voice lost its sarcastic bite. “She’s a lady, Oliver. Her father’s titled and she’s wealthy beyond anything you can even imagine. She lives in a grand house—several grand houses. Her father has probably turned down dozens of men he deems too inferior for her. What do you think he’d say to the likes of you?”
“That doesn’t matter. Not out here,” Oliver reasoned.
Cyprian shook his head. “I’ll admit that’s true. But tell me, do you think
she
would consider an offer of marriage from a poor sailor? Besides, she already has a fiance.”
But Oliver refused to concede the point. “If I had the chance to court her properly, I could convince her. If you would leave her alone,” he added, as belligerent as before.
Cyprian gritted his teeth in irritation. What in hell was wrong with the fool? The fact that an irritating voice in his head said that Oliver was right about Eliza —that she was the type to marry and raise a nursery full of rosy-cheeked children with—only increased his anger.
He glanced at Xavier, but the big African offered no help. In fact, he had an odd grin on his face as if he enjoyed watching his friends spar over the same slight woman.
“Just stay away from her,” Cyprian finally growled at Oliver.
“And watch you ruin her?” Oliver advanced toward Cyprian, his body stiff as if he meant to challenge him right there. Only then did Xavier intercede. He blocked
Oliver’s progress with one unyielding hand on the young man’s arm.
“I shall ensure Miss Eliza’s security as long as she’s aboard the
Chameleon.”
His steady gaze went from Cyprian to Oliver and back to Cyprian. “I vowed as much to her, and I make the same vow now to the both of you. Think of me as her father, if you will,” he added with a returning grin.
Cyprian wanted to curse the two of them as they stared at him. What was it about this one little slip of a woman that she could set his two most reliable men at odds with him?
“See to the watch,” he finally muttered. But even as he departed the deck, Cyprian vowed to himself that before this voyage was done he would have the high and mighty Eliza Thoroughgood in his bed. Lady she might be, but he was no less deserving of her favors than her precious Michael was. Had his father but claimed him, he would be considered more than fitting as a suitor for her hand.
The fact that his father hadn’t claimed him only goaded him more sharply to take what she had to offer. She could be made willing. He knew that already.
As for Xavier and Oliver, if either of them interfered too much he would put them ashore in La Coeuna and continue on to Alderney without them. Just him and Eliza Thoroughgood and a crew that knew when to shut up and look the other way.