No, not empty, I realised, as a shadow beside the water resolved into a man. He looked like he was wearing an old-fashioned frock coat the length of my dress, though. Not the leather jacket George had been wearing while we sat around the fire.
The man turned to face me, but with his face in shadow I couldn't see his features. "Lucretia," he called, beckoning. He put so much passion and longing into that one word, I felt my cheeks flush.
I shivered, pulling my own jacket more tightly around my shoulders. When I looked up, the man was gone.
A heavy hand landed on my shoulder and I squeaked in fright.
George laughed softly. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
I stared at the beach where I was certain I'd seen the man. "I think I just did. Worse, he knew my name."
"Ah, and there is power in names, isn't there? A streghetta like you would know." He held out his arm and this time I didn't hesitate to take it. "Come, Lucy, let's go fishing. I'll keep you safe from sharks and ghosts, I swear."
He seemed so amused about my ghost that I wondered if he'd been playing a prank, wearing that coat over his own and then stashing it in the bushes before stepping out as himself again.
"I've never told you my name, have I?" I asked.
"No, you haven't. I remember introducing myself in your laundry lean-to, even giving you my best courtly bow, but you didn't do me the honour of telling me your name. I had my sources, though, Lucy." Moonlight glinted off his bared teeth, turning his smile into something far more frightening.
It was my turn to smile. "So you already know that my Christian name is Lucretia Lucia?"
He stopped to stare at me. "Now you're joking, surely."
I shook my head. "I was named for my father's mother, my grandmother who died in Croatia before it became part of Yugoslavia. It's not a very common name here, so it's strange to suddenly share it with a woman who must have died in a shipwreck on these very islands, three hundred years ago."
George's arm circled my shoulder for the first time. "If you have a three-hundred-year-old ghost for a suitor, he can't have you, Lucy. Lucretia. I won't let him."
Instead of pulling away from his embrace as propriety said I should, I threw caution to the wind and moved closer to him. "Thank you," I said, and meant it.
A chuckle rumbled through his chest. "I'd planned this differently, but I didn't plan for ghosts. Did you mean what you said when you asked me to kiss you?"
"Ye – " I began, but was cut off as his lips claimed mine so absolutely that I couldn't speak. This time, when my knees threatened to buckle, I didn't grope for a weapon. I reached around his back and pulled him hard against me. This was my kiss and my choice and, by God, I intended to claim it fully. My brother and his pretend ghost could go hang.
After several glorious minutes, he wrenched his mouth from mine. I wasn't the only one panting. "My God, Lucy. No, Lucretia. You truly are streghetta mia, my witch who has enchanted me." He started to laugh. "I've heard stories of witches who live uncommonly long lives. Are you sure you're not the same beautiful Lucretia from that long-ago shipwreck, come back to tempt mortal men with your bewitching charms?"
I smiled sadly. "No. I'm just me." The magic of the moment was gone, as quickly as it had appeared. Awkwardly, I twisted out of his arms. "Aren't we going fishing?"
"Of course." He took my hand and clicked on a torch with his other hand. "Be careful not to slip. Sharks hunt better at night."
I sidled closer to his side as we stepped onto the reef. I couldn't afford a misstep tonight.
George seemed oddly unburdened for a man who planned on taking me fishing. Aside from the torch and my clammy fingers, his hands were empty. "Where's your miraculous net?" I asked.
"Already in place. I helped gut tonight's catch and the offal went into my trap for bait. I set it while dinner was cooking, so with luck, we'll have already caught something. Chicken is better bait than fish, especially when it's no longer fresh, but as fish guts were all I had, it will do."
Now I understood why he'd come to dinner looking like he'd just bathed. He'd been scrubbing the fish guts off his hands. Thank goodness he had.
Twenty-Three
When the island was just a hulking shadow in the distance, George stopped and pointed at something bobbing in the waves. In the beam of his torch, it became a cork float. "The float's at one end of the rope and my trap's at the other. Now all we need to do is haul it up to check it."
He expected me to haul a heavy load up from the sea floor? Did he take me for a common labourer? I bristled, but George handed me his torch. "Here, hold this and point it at the rope so I can see what I'm doing."
Mollified, I did as he asked, but my eyes soon strayed from the rope. His arm muscles bulged beneath his shirt sleeves as he pulled the rope, hand over hand, from the inky depths. Arms that held me just as securely to his chest when I was afraid. Arms I wanted to clasp me now as he kissed me again. And then, maybe...
A fishing basket broke the surface. Not quite the same sort as I'd seen at the fish markets, but near enough. Instead of an open top, this one was covered, with a hole in the top perhaps four or five inches across. Some trap – it would be empty, I was certain of it. Who'd ever heard of a trap with a hole in the top that the creatures could simply swim out of?
George dropped the fishing basket on a rock and I stepped back to avoid the water streaming off its sides. The sound of something's legs clattering on the cane surprised me. George grinned as if he'd heard it, too. "Sounds like we've already caught something, Lucy. Would you like to pull it out?"
Whatever it was seemed to want to pull itself out, I decided, the torch shaking in my hands as the light caught some sort of long hairs rising from the hole on top. They waved erratically like the antennae of some enormous bug and I jumped back in surprise. "What in heaven's name is that?"
George pulled a hessian bag free of the rope and handed it to me before untangling another one. "Hold that one open," he instructed, wrapping his bag around his hand like a clumsy glove. Then he thrust his wrapped hand into the hole.
Something scrambled around the inside of the basket and my stomach churned in consternation until he pulled out a creature with waving antennae and a clacking tail. It looked vaguely like the crayfish that I'd occasionally seen at the fish markets in Fremantle, but this monster was easily three or four times the size of the ones at home. It had to weigh at least five pounds, maybe more. George dropped it into the bag. I prayed it didn't know how to escape.
A scraping sound came from the basket and George's hand vanished inside again. This time, he pulled out a crab, its pincers locked into the hessian. These islands surely bred monsters, I decided, my eyes widening at a crab so big it wouldn't fit in any of Mum's pots at home. No, not even the big stewpot I'd used for the crabs when Mum had been sick. Mum's ones had been blue; this one was red and white.
He shook his arm over my open bag until the hessian, crab and all slid into the mouth of the sack. I sagged with relief as he took the bag from me, twirling it until it twisted shut. A swift kick sent the basket back into the depths so that only the float bobbed on the surface once more. The faint smell of fish guts vanished with it, thank goodness.
"So now you know how to catch crabs," he said. "Are there any other secrets you'd like to know?"
An honest rake who kept his promises. Dazed, I nodded, but my tongue froze in my mouth at the thought of asking him why a woman would want a lover.
When he realised I wasn't going to ask anything yet, George slung the sack over one shoulder and held out his free hand. "I'll leave the trap in the water until morning and check it again then. In the meantime, we can go to bed or if you like, we can sit on the beach and stare at the stars for a bit."
Hand in hand, we headed back to the island.
Twenty-Four
I let out a huge sigh of relief when my feet touched the beach sand again. Every step on the reef, wondering if I'd stumble into a hole or slip off the rock entire
ly or be seized by a leaping shark, was more than my nerves could take.
"So, a few minutes more on the beach, or would you prefer to go to bed?" George asked.
For a moment, I toyed with the idea of sharing a bed with George. Not my bunk here, of course, with so many chaperones in the shed I could barely draw breath without someone noticing, but somewhere private. Somewhere where he could explain to me why a woman took a lover, because looking at him in the moonlight, I began to wonder what sort of lover he might be.
"I should get some sleep," I admitted, ducking my head so he wouldn't see my flaming cheeks.
His teeth glinted in the darkness. "Would you like a good night kiss, Lucy?"
"Yes," I breathed.
Still clutching the bag in one hand, he wrapped his arms around me and touched his lips to mine. This time, I was the first to open my mouth, running the tip of my tongue along his lips until slipping it deeper inside. Then, it didn't seem to matter who led who in this passionate dance that caught my breath as much as it did his.
Gradually, I became aware of a persistent pressure against my behind. More accurately, something pinching my bottom through my skirt.
Once a rogue, always a rogue. How dare he!
I wrenched my lips free. "George Paino, if you don't take your hand off where it has no business being right now, I shall scream."
"Which one?" His fingers stroked my cheek as I felt his other hand caress the back of my neck. Did the man have three hands?
"The one pinching my bottom. You're hurting me, George!"
His hands left my face and I felt his fingers drift down my back. He started to laugh. "I'm sorry, Lucy, it seems the crab's grabbed you through the bag. Give me a moment to try and pry him free." He released the bag, but the crab only tightened his grip on me, making me gasp in pain. Now George had both hands on my bottom and I didn't care a scrap, as long as he freed me from the creature's grasp. "There!" He flung the bag, crab and all, away and I reached to rub at the painful spot. When the bag landed ten feet away, the dastardly creature poked a cautious claw out the top.
"Do you want me to catch it again so you can kill it?" George asked.
I watched the horrid thing emerge, wishing I could crawl into a hole and hide from my own embarrassment. "I never want to see another crab again. I can't believe I thought you'd do something like that. I'm sorry."
He chuckled, pulling me close again. "Well, I admit I did think about it, but I'd have the good manners to at least ask you first." His voice dropped to a whisper. "But if we were lovers, I wouldn't have had to ask."
My insides didn't just melt. They seemed to heat up, too. I lifted my lips for another scorching kiss and George gave it to me. His fingers burned a trail down my throat to the top button on my dress.
"Forgive me, Lucy," he said, pressing his lips lightly to my collarbone. "For a moment, I forgot that you've never..."
I took a deep breath and popped the first three buttons free. Faster and faster, I unfastened the rest until my dress gaped open. Reason and passion warred in my head, but ultimately, I won. "I want to know why a respectable woman would want a lover. And I want that lover to be you." Why was I breathing so hard?
His gaze slid down the front of my open dress, lingering on my brassiere. "I want to be much more than your lover, Lucretia, streghetta mia." One finger stroked my breast through the fabric, setting my skin alight beneath it. If only it would burn the barrier away, so nothing stood between his skin and mine. But it didn't, so I set to undressing. I couldn't remove my brassiere fast enough, or the rest of my underwear. "Since the day we met, I wanted to take you home and never be parted from you for anything. I want to be your everything, Lucy." He struggled out of his shirt and I shivered as his hard belly met mine. His shorts brushed against my legs before they slid to the sand.
"What about your oysters and pearls?" I mumbled, gasping as he laid me naked on the beach. His body was as bare as mine – skin on skin, nothing separating us.
His fingers traced my curves, setting fire to all of my senses. "If I searched the whole ocean, I'd never find a more precious pearl than you, Lucretia. And on the pearling luggers, we say that the most valuable oyster is this." His hand stroked down my belly, not stopping until he reached the juncture of my thighs. "And inside...ah, I've found a pearl that will please you, streghetta mia." With one more intimate caress, he set my blood fizzing and bubbling, as if all the passionate heat contained in my body was boiling it into a frenzy. "Say you'll be mine."
"Yes," I cried out. "Yes!"
I clenched his hand between my thighs, not wanting him to stop. His fingers played parts of me that no one had ever touched. Heavens, he was stroking inside me and it was all I could do not to beg for more. And yet, if he gave me more, my body might shatter. I tried to speak, but the only noise that left my lips was like the moan of a soaring seabird.
I was so intent on his fingers that I barely noticed his murmured endearments, for he commanded my body so utterly that I couldn't concentrate on his mouth. I gasped in shock as his tongue rasped across my breast, leaving me tingling deep beneath my skin. He latched onto my breast, sucking hard as his fingers detonated something inside me, and I found myself flying somewhere among the stars.
Why wouldn't a woman want a lover when he could grant her wings? And yet we hadn't...hadn't...
"Did I answer you to your satisfaction, streghetta mia?"
I gasped for air, struggling to catch my breath enough to answer him. More, I wanted to say, terrified that I'd sound forward for asking.
"Or would you like me to show you more?"
I nodded, aching to feel his fingers again as he stole control of my body.
"I will give you everything I have, Lucy, but you must tell me what you want. I stole our first kiss from you, but I won't make the same mistake again." He kissed my breast and I shivered at the thrill of it. "Tell me."
I wasn't like the wanton women he'd known before. How could I ask for something I barely understood? It's not as if people talked about such intimate things. "I don't know. I want to, but I've never..."
George wrapped his arms around me, rolling across the sand until my body lay across his. "Sit astride me, Lucretia."
"What, like a horse?" I asked unthinkingly, scrambling up onto my knees. I felt the hard length of him beneath me and I blushed. Heavens, George was certainly hung like a horse. Did he truly want me to ride him like one? But how could something so large fit inside me?
Timidly, I touched my fingers to his...manhood. There had to be a better name for it. I closed my eyes. Hot and hard and smooth and...had he twitched under my touch?
George groaned. "Streghetta mia, ride me as hard or as gently as you wish. I beg you..."
My loins ached in response. "Yes," I whispered, guiding him home with my shaking hands. Searing heat filled me as he brushed against that tender spot his fingers had caressed so powerfully before. Experimentally, I lifted and lowered my hips, gasping as whatever nerve he'd touched inside me sang again. There was no pain, but the pleasure was unimaginable. Heavens above, and I'd thought his hands were delightful...
My shout of ecstasy mingled with the seabirds' cries as I soared with the stars once more.
Further up the beach, unaware of our blissful union, a crab escaped into its watery home. I didn't care, for I'd caught a far greater prize, and George's strong arms would never let me go.
Author's Note
How To Catch Crabs is the story of an unlikely couple who appear in my Turbulence and Triumph series, but whose tale remained untold until now. The Turbulence and Triumph books are about the mysterious Maria, starting with her rescue in the Indian Ocean in Ocean's Justice.
If you'd like to be the first to know when I release a new book, plus get a FREE book, you can sign up to receive emails about my new releases HERE.
And if you'd like a taste of Maria's tale...read on for FOUR bonus chapters from Ocean's Justice, the first book in the Turbulence and Triumph series.
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One
If I never saw the sea again, it would be too soon.
"She's too much trouble. Too turbulent to do what she must. Send her away somewhere so she can learn obedience. Then she may return."
"She's too young – barely eighteen. She's still upset over his death. Surely we should wait before we send her anywhere."
"No. She did what needed to be done and he's dead by her hand. She's understandably upset, but that will fade. He was only a man. I say we send her away and see what she's capable of accomplishing. What say you, child?"
My mouth still tasted bad at the words I'd spat at the vicious old women, but I'd say the same thing again in a heartbeat. "I hate you. I loved him. He didn't deserve to die and I will NEVER obey your orders again."
My defiance was futile. What did it get me? A small raft drifting across the Indian Ocean, with nothing but the sound of waves and the smell of salt and coal-smoke.
Smoke meant a ship. I was saved.
I squinted into the sunlight, but the waves hid the vessel from me. Maybe I was looking the wrong way. I didn't have the strength to sit up and see.
Rough hands seized me. I struggled, but my weakness won.
Blue eyes drifted above, the same colour as the ocean below. A tangle of wiry seaweed obscured the rest of the man's face.
"It's all right, lass. I'll take care of you."
Darkness took me first.
Two
"Miss? Can you tell me your name? Can you even hear me?" A clammy hand touched my forehead.
I focussed on the words and tried to translate them. I responded to the only one I understood. "Maria."
"Your name is Maria?"
My neck felt stiff as I nodded and opened my eyes.
"I'm Charlie. Charles Seaborn, but everyone calls me Charlie. The other men said you wouldn't live, but Mr McGregor said any girl who could rig that raft and survive long enough to be rescued wasn't going to die in her bed. Mr Allchin, the cook, is going to be furious when he finds out I won my bet. When we reach the Cape, I'm going to use the money to pay for my first woman and...beg pardon, miss. Maria, I mean." The boy reddened, but it didn't slow his words. "Some of the other men are saying you're something supernatural, seeing as you look like Venus and all, on account of having no clothes. Not like them skinny flappers. You have bosoms. The men talk about them a lot. A few say you're bad luck and we never should have rescued you, because you'll doom us like your last ship, but if you were going to sink ships, you wouldn't be floating around on a raft with no clothes and no food or water, a breath away from death. Doesn't make sense. Are you hungry, miss?"
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