by Fiona Monroe
"That—that was cruel of you. It hurt so much!"
"Not at all. I am responsible for getting us through this voyage in safety. And it was meant to hurt. You brought it on yourself, so you cannot complain."
"I—" She turned her head to look into his face. "I do not complain. And you are not cruel. I am sorry. Truly I'm sorry, sir!" Tears fell from her eyes.
With a gentle finger, he wiped away one tear, and the other. Then he traced the curve of her cheek with his fingertips, before cupping her face. "And you must stay in here, for a while," he murmured. "So that the men think that having punished you, I am now asserting my mastery over you entirely."
"What? Oh no." She felt her face burn as red as her poor nether cheeks. "My reputation..."
"Wheest. These are common sea dogs from Venezuela. They're likely illiterate, they do not even speak English. They'll hardly be gossiping about you at Almack's."
That drew half a smile from her, though it was reluctant. She rubbed her cheek against his palm, and waited; sure he was going to kiss her at last.
Instead, after giving her a long serious look, he took his hands from her and stood up, and turned his back on her. With slow, rather clumsy-looking movements, he threaded his belt back through its loops and fastened it. She had leisure now to study it, and winced to see how wide and thick it was. It was no wonder that her backside and thighs still throbbed cruelly; he had not spared his strength, either.
Nor, evidently, was he going to make good the masquerade, not if he was fastening up rather than taking down his trousers. Elspeth slumped forward onto the pillow and eased her skirts back down, not wanting to lie there exposed to him if he had no intention of... asserting his mastery. She shivered, and closed her eyes. She was so very uncomfortable, but her heart hurt worse than her bottom did.
"Elspeth."
She opened her eyes again, in surprise. And shock, at hearing her Christian name, bared of its title, from his lips.
He had seated himself on the edge of the bed again, but a little away from her, and did not touch her. He was watching her, his face cast into earnest shadows by the gloom of the fast-falling dusk.
"It is not," he said, "God knows, it is not that I don't want to. You are so beautiful—and so warm—and so lively—you would tempt a far better man than I. But I am enough your senior to have command of my passions. I cannot offer myself honourably, and I will not ruin you."
She parted her lips to speak, indignantly, and he silenced her with a finger against them.
"No. Do you think I am oblivious to your desires? I told you, that lovely face is an open book. You yearn for the delights of marriage, and while that is no bad thing in its proper place, you must save those appetites for your future husband to satisfy. Besides, I would do it ill, for I am sadly out of practice."
"I had no thoughts of any such thing, sir," she said stiffly, and pressed her face into the pillow again.
His every word on such a subject fanned the flames that were burning between her legs, as hot and hard to bear as the tenderness in her behind. She felt, at the same time, exceedingly foolish. It did not help to hear him saying that he desired her, if in the same breath he rejected her. She wanted to go, she wanted to be alone to nurse her aching backside and heart alike; but she was trapped with him for now, to fulfil this bizarre charade.
He did not argue with her, but lit an oil lamp and opened a book. Elspeth opened her eyes only once, to see him sitting in the cabin's one comfortable armchair, frowning down at its pages. Wrung out, exhausted, sore and confused, but feeling oddly soothed, Elspeth fell soundly asleep.
When he heard her breathing grow steady, Roderick lifted his eyes from the words he was scarcely seeing and gazed at Lady Elspeth's sleeping form. He waited, book open but disregarded on his lap, for full ten minutes until he could feel sure that he would not disturb her, then stood to take a closer look.
Strands of her golden hair were matted to her cheek with dried tears, and he longed to brush them away; but he did not dare to touch her, in case it awakened her. If she opened those blue eyes and looked into his once more, with the gleam of eager yet innocent desire that he had seen there earlier, then he would be lost. Or more accurately, she would be lost.
And yet, even if in theory she had more to lose that he had if his sorely-tried self control broke, he worried that his heart had already fallen victim to the old, old snare. If he had been Sir Roderick Buccleuch, Laird of Lochlannan—if he had never run from the castle that night, if the past twenty years had gone as they ought—then he might have aspired to address the daughter of the Marquess of Crieff, but he would have been making a damned fool of himself even then. He was an old fool indeed, to imagine that this fresh and lovely girl would have taken him seriously. She wanted him now, for the dalliance of an hour, but she would marry someone young and handsome and titled and rich.
He would not injure her chance of doing that, and he would not plunge his own heart further into folly. He adjusted the blanket carefully over her slumbering limbs, then left her side and prepared to curl up and sleep as best he could in the armchair.
Chapter Fourteen
Every day the air grew colder and the sky blazed lighter. The sea sank from azure blue to churning grey, although there was no taste of ice in the air.
"We have been fortunate with the weather the whole voyage," the Captain said, when Elspeth noted how warm it was. "Although, this is the best possible time of year to make this journey. I am glad..."
He fell silent. Elspeth looked round at him, studying his face in profile, waiting for him to go on.
"I am glad to be coming home when Scotland wears its fairest face. You know what they say? Or used to say, at any rate." He grinned to himself. "Good God, it is twenty years and more."
"What did they say twenty years ago, sir?"
"That Scotland has but two seasons. June, and winter."
She laughed. "And are we really getting near?"
"Oh, aye. Two days more, at the utmost, and we should sight land. If I made myself understood to the navigator, and I cannot guarantee it for my Spanish is bad to begin with and Castilian to boot—you may as well speak the King's English to an Edinburgh caddie—if, as I say, the good fellow took my meaning, we should sail north of the Hebrides to avoid any problems along the West Coast, and make port at Aberdeen."
"Aberdeen is only ten miles from Dunwoodie," she said, a sinking, odd feeling in her stomach.
"Then you will soon be home," he said, simply.
"And you, sir? What will you..."
"You need not concern yourself about me."
"Oh, but I do!"
He leaned forward on the rail for a moment, silent, then said, "Pray do not, your ladyship," and left her standing there.
Elspeth chewed her lower lip, and gazed as she so often had at the wide wide sky and the wide wide sea. Its huge emptiness had never lost its power to thrill her with a sense of freedom, however much she had longed for the temporary distractions ashore in the Azores. She was having a reoccurring dream now of land looming up and engulfing her from all sides, crushing her down into the earth.
She would rather sail on forever and ever, eating salt meat and hard tack with the Captain every evening, than be home at Dunwoodie dining on venison and quail and never see him again.
And it was so unfair. He was a baronet, from an old family. He was not in the first rank, but she knew perfectly well that James had no longer any idea of making a very great match for her. He had been prepared to marry her to a private gentleman, with nothing to recommend him beyond wealth and respectability, a connection of his own low-born first wife. Surely, Sir Roderick Buccleuch would represent a more eligible match than Mr Isaac Crowther, if everyone were in their proper place. James might have no objection, if only it were known who he was—and if only it were not known that he was a pirate.
A sudden dangerous flutter of hope began in Elspeth's chest. After all, why should it not be known? What he had said came bac
k to her, about the impossibility of either refusing or bestowing a title; and also, about the fact that nobody knew that the drowned young heir of Lochlannan, and the notorious pirate the Black Scot, were one in the same person. Roderick Buccleuch had been declared dead all those years ago, when his ship had sunk with all hands. Why should he not come to life now, and reclaim his heritage? Then he would be Sir Roderick, and get his estate back, and then James would let her marry him.
He had as good as said that he could offer himself honourably if he would. He had called her beautiful, and warm, and lively. Elspeth had tried very hard not to allow his words that night to affect how she behaved towards him, because she was still determined that she would not be as foolish as Miss Fairbanks, but she often hugged them to her heart all the same.
Caught in the excitement of her idea, she turned on her heel and ran towards the Great Cabin to tell the Captain all about it.
She stopped before she was halfway there, and not only because she saw the Captain mounting the steps in the company of one of the sailors, whom she vaguely knew to be the man in charge of driving the ship, or steering it, or however it was managed. They were going to pore over charts or something, she supposed, in preparation for approaching land. She could not interrupt that; nor, all of a sudden, did she think it was the best plan to tell the Captain what was in her mind.
She had a feeling he might not entirely share her excitement. She had a feeling, in fact, that he would thoroughly disapprove of the plan. And after all, she could hardly represent it to him as a way of allowing them to be married, since—whatever he had intimated that night—he had not actually offered her his hand.
She went back to her own cabin, and lay back on her bunk to think it over. Time was running out for them, of that much she was sure. If they made port at Aberdeen within a week, then presumably the Captain would send word to her brother that he was holding her prisoner, and demand a ransom for her safe release. She had no idea how this would all be managed, but one thing she was sure about; once the Captain made a ransom demand, he would brand himself a pirate. But if he did not, if he sent instead for his brother and revealed his true identity, then he could claim that he had rescued her from the pirates... and... and sailed her back home in the ship he and his trusty men had managed to seize back from the brigands!
Elspeth sat up abruptly, a thrill running through her as the story fell into place in her imagination. Who would know, who could possibly know the truth? Even if the Captain had no papers to prove who he really was, nobody who looked at him could doubt for a moment that he was Sir Duncan's brother. She was sure that Sir Duncan himself would know him as soon as he set eyes on him. Why then, should not everyone—James, Sir Duncan—believe that Sir Roderick Buccleuch was a hero who had rescued a fair lady in distress? Who would think that he had been one of the pirates himself?
As to how the Captain might account for how he had been living for the past twenty years, and why he had never gone home—good heavens, there were a dozen tales that Elspeth could come up with upon a moment's reflection, based on her extensive reading of adventure stories and romances. She was sure that a clever, learned man like the Captain could imagine a dozen more.
It was true that this way he would get no ransom for her; but then, if he reclaimed his rightful inheritance he would not need it. Sir Duncan was known to be wealthy enough. Perhaps it would be a little hard on his brother, who would have to go back to being plain Mr Buccleuch, but she could not help that. And then they would be married, and she would be Lady Buccleuch—no more girlish Lady Elspeth for her—and he would take her back to his Highland castle and -
Her breath coming in short gasps, Elspeth made a deliberate effort to douse down the vivid flames of her imagination. She could not travel too far down that road in her mind, while all in reality was so wretchedly uncertain. But it was very clear to her now that the Captain had quite the wrong idea of what he was about, and that however ill he might receive her advice at first, she had to convince him of her plan.
He came for her at eight bells as usual, and escorted her to his cabin on his arm in full view of the men. Elspeth had ceased to worry that the common sailors assumed that he took her to the Great Cabin for more than dinner, and that in fact he encouraged that assumption by locking his door once the cook had served their food, and keeping her there late into the evening. Often she did not return to her own cabin until it was time for bed. Often they talked, sometimes they read to each other; cards were out of the question, since there were no games for two players that either of them found sufficiently amusing. They both loved whist, but could not play it without another couple. Elspeth had no head for chess, and she found backgammon boring. So reading was their chief amusement; the Captain had undertaken to listen to a modern novel, if Elspeth would agree to submit herself to a dose of Shakespeare on alternate nights.
That evening, however, she did not so much as remember to bring volume two of The Curse of Blackthorne Abbey with her. She was trembling with nervous excitement, equal parts hope and apprehension.
"The fare is, I fear, at very low tide," he said, with a wry look, after the expressively grinning cook had laid two plates between them with a flourish and bowed out of the cabin with a leer.
Elspeth looked at the mess of unidentifiable dark brown meat, swimming in a pool of thin broth, with a couple of ship's biscuits laid on the side of the platter. The edges of the biscuits were beginning to crumble into the gravy, and she picked one up in her fingers and nibbled at it. The blandness and chewy texture of the hard tack merged well with the strong salty taste of the broth; bizarrely, she was developing a taste for ship's rations.
"It is not unpalatable," she said.
"I'll say one thing for you, your ladyship," he said, with a grin. "You are a good sailor. Of course, Gonzales probably picked out some biscuits without weevils, especially for the Captain's woman."
Elspeth felt herself blush, and began the more laborious process of cutting up the salt meat into portions small enough to chew daintily. She had already discovered that you could not take normal mouthfuls of the leathery strips and expect to be able to hold a conversation for ten minutes afterwards.
"Of course," the Captain continued, "you can fry up the weevils, did you know that? Get a decent handful, fry in oil, and spread them on the biscuit. Delicious."
"You cannot impose on me, sir. You have never done any such thing."
"Well, true, I myself have not—but I have seen it done. Why should you doubt me?"
"Because you take a delight in teasing me, and think I will believe anything."
"No indeed. Well, about the delight in teasing you, perhaps. But hand on heart, my honour as a gentleman—on long voyages, when men grow desperate, they do not scorn many sources of nourishment and variety."
Elspeth did not argue further. His honour as a gentleman—that was exactly where she wanted to go, but she hardly knew how to begin.
"At any rate, we will be able to fill the hold with good Scottish fare very soon now," he said, with a slightly forced-sounding cheer. "Though what Gonzales will make of pheasant and haggis and herring, I have no idea. It should make for some interesting meals on the way back. I wonder if he knows how to make porridge. I have no earthly idea myself—do you?"
"Why should I, sir? I dislike porridge anyway." Her lips felt numb.
"Quite right. Foul stuff, but dry oats would keep well aboard ship..."
"You will... go back, then?"
"To the West Indies? Of course I will. I promised my crew that I would return with whatever bounty I could."
"And share it with them?"
"That is the way we do things."
"But—that is unfair!" she cried. "They stayed behind, they would not even help you sail the ship! You had to hire all these Venezuelan sailors, and put us in constant fear of mutiny! And will not they want paying, too?"
The Captain was glowering at his plate now. He shrugged. "We agreed a price."
"So you will pay them from my ransom, and then you will go all the way back across the ocean and give up the rest of it to Washington and the others, who never lifted a finger to help you? Who took your ship from you?"
"This is no business of yours, your ladyship."
"Of course it is my business! Am I not the one to be ransomed?"
"That is irrelevant. If you were a hold full of gold bullion, which for some reason could only be sold in Scotland, it would make no difference to my actions."
"So is that how you see me?" Tears of indignation had started to her eyes. "Bars of gold bullion? Gold bars that can, oh so very inconveniently, talk?"
"Oh, for—" He uttered an exclamation in the Gaelic which Elspeth caught the gist of, though it included words she had only ever overheard bandied between stable lads at Dunwoodie. "I repeat, it is no concern of yours what I do, or how I dispose of my affairs, once I have delivered you safely back to your family. If all goes well, you will never hear of me again. If things go badly—well, no matter."
"If things go badly, you will be arrested as a pirate, and—and—hung! That is what you think I am too delicate and timid to hear!"
"Frankly, yes."
"Don't you think I have thought about it, over and over?"
"I have no idea what you think about, your ladyship."
"Oh! Don't you see! It is all wrong!"
"What now?"
"You don't need to ransom me. You need not appear in the character of my captor, or a pirate, or a criminal of any sort! All you need to do is make yourself known as Sir Roderick Buccleuch, and then you will have your inheritance, and a title, and a castle in Inverness-shire and everything! You won't need a ransom, you will have your own fortune and you can pay off those horrid Venezuelans and make them go away. You can say that you saved me from pirates, and my brother will be forever in your debt, and—" She stopped short of saying what pressed most on her heart, that he would then be in a position to marry her.