Shamus eyed him warily.
He must stop thinking of her in such a way.
“What are you doing?”
As if his thoughts had conjured her, Emmaline stood in the doorway. Nay, not Emmaline. Anne. Lady Anne with her sword at her side, and her breeches hugging every delicious curve and the white shirt that fell lovingly over firm breasts. Did one wear a corset under a man’s shirt? He yanked his thoughts from such a direction. What did it matter when he hated her with every fiber of his being?
He stood, shielding Shamus with his body, and placed the bowl on the chair. She watched his movements with narrowed eyes, balanced on the balls of her feet as if waiting for an attack.
He glanced over his shoulder at Shamus, who was watching with wide eyes.
“I’m tending to your injured captive since no one else seems to be.”
She raised a brow, amusement making her lips twitch and reminding him of the minx who had enchanted him when they met at Dorothy’s ball.
“You needn’t worry yourself over him,” she said.
“Someone needs to.”
She crossed her arms and he almost groaned out loud when the action pushed up her breasts. No. Definitely no corset under her shirt.
“Are you insinuating that I am shirking my duties to this man?” She tipped her head to Shamus, who was valiantly fighting the exhaustion overtaking him.
“Insinuating? No, milady, I’m insinuating nothing. I’m telling you this man has been horribly neglected after being injured at the tip of your sword.”
She reared back, her face losing color. Nicholas stifled his satisfaction. Point in his favor, and proof she was the one who caused Shamus’s injury.
“You will leave this cabin now, sir.”
This time it was he who raised his brows. “Is that an order, Captain?”
“Most certainly.”
He closed the distance between them, just a few short paces. They stood toe-to-toe and he breathed in Emmaline’s scent of crisp ocean air and the sweat of hard work. She smelled like no woman he’d ever encountered before. Forevermore, he’d want his women to wear nothing but the scent of the ocean in their hair and the warmth of the sun on their skin.
“I take orders from no one, especially not you. Milady.”
To her credit she didn’t step back or wilt. Not that he expected Emmaline Sutherland—for that was how he thought of her, regardless of her Lady Anne persona—to wilt. He would have been disappointed if she had.
“This is my ship, Addison. My orders are followed or consequences are suffered.”
He tilted his head, his gaze sliding over her parted lips. “Consequences?” He deliberately made his breath husky, hinting at desire.
Hinting? Hell, no. There was no hint. Desire slammed into him as hard and strong as the waves that rocked the ship days ago. He wanted her savagely. The only thing keeping him from wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing his body against her was Shamus lying in the bed behind him.
Her chest rose and she let out a long breath. Color climbed into her cheeks and her eyes flashed with annoyance. At him or her body’s reaction to him?
“Get out,” she whispered between gritted teeth. “Get out of this cabin now.”
He closed the inches of distance he’d allowed them. The tips of her breasts, pointed and hard, brushed against his chest. It took every bit of self-control not to cup one. “Or what, Emmaline?”
“Or …” She swallowed and licked her lips, then pressed them together as if she knew she’d given away too much.
“Or?”
“Just leave.” Her shoulders stiffened and she looked away.
He stepped back because suddenly this game was far too serious, and he was losing control. “Shamus needs tending. His wound is festering.”
“I’m aware.”
“Then why hasn’t something been done about it?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I know you find it hard to believe, but I don’t answer to you, Mr. Addison. Whether you like it or not, I am captain of this ship and I decide what is to be done. Not you.”
He wanted to point out that he wasn’t Mr. Addison, but rather, Captain Addison, or if he wanted to be more specific, Lord Addison. She slipped past him and he couldn’t stop the shiver racing up his spine as her body brushed against his. When he turned, she was leaning over Shamus, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead. Shamus was looking up at her with—adoring eyes?
What the hell?
Wasn’t she the one who injured him? How was he able to look at her as if she had saved his life?
“Go, Mr. Addison. You’re not needed here.” She didn’t even bother to look at him.
Still, his feet wouldn’t move him to the door. Instead he watched, transfixed at the braid dipping over her shoulder and resting on the bed. At the way those trousers stretched across the most beautiful, erotic bottom he’d ever seen.
She murmured softly to Shamus.
Nicholas turned on his heel and stomped out of the room with his hands curled into fists at his sides.
Ever since he’d accepted Kenmar’s assignment, nothing had gone as planned and nothing was as he expected.
He closed the door quietly behind him. He wasn’t about to let her know how much she’d burrowed under his skin. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, grinding his back teeth. Bloody, bloody hell. What had happened in there?
She was right. He had no say. He wasn’t captain of this vessel. She was. So what did he do? He intimidated her with the only weapon he had at his disposal. Her lust for him. Oh, he saw it. He knew she wanted him, was thinking of the kiss they shared in his cabin, and he shamelessly, ruthlessly used it to his advantage.
Except, who was caught in the web of desire he wove?
He was.
Chapter Nine
“Nicholas, I need you.”
Nicholas turned into the gentle hands nudging his shoulder. It wasn’t enough he thought about Emmaline all day, but she also raided his nights, coming to him in the deep of sleep, enticing him with her lithe body and eyes filled with erotic promises.
He groaned, on fire with a need that reached to his soul.
“Captain Addison.”
His eyes fluttered open. She’d never called him Captain Addison in his dreams before. Hell, she’d even stopped calling him that to his face. He blinked, disoriented, his mind full of images he wasn’t quite ready to let go.
Emmaline shook his shoulder. “I need you.” The whispered words jerked him out of his sleep, and suddenly his mind was completely clear, processing what was before him. Emmaline in her white shirt, untucked from the ever-present breeches, her feet bare, her hair unbound and falling around her shoulders.
He reached for her but she stepped back and his hands fell to the bunk.
“It’s Shamus. He’s in a bad way.”
Shamus was in a bad way? More like Nicholas was in a bad way.
“Help me, Nicholas. Please.”
He sat up and rubbed a hand down his face, scratching at the beard he hadn’t shaved in nigh on a week, because his captors didn’t trust him with a blade.
Emmaline tugged on his arm.
“All right. All right.” Damn. She wasn’t here to entice him or make love to him. She was here because of Shamus.
Grumbling, he threw his legs over the bed, uncaring that he was in nothing but his drawers. If she was squeamish about seeing a man half-dressed, then she shouldn’t enter a man’s cabin in the middle of the night.
Emmaline backed up a few steps, her cheeks coloring at the raging erection tenting his drawers, and looked down at her toes curling into the wooden floor.
Nicholas reached for the breeches he’d left in a heap on the floor and quickly pulled them on.
She didn’t wait for him to don his shirt. She grabbed his hand and dragged him to the door. “We must hurry. I fear …” Her voice trailed off and Nicholas’s stomach lurched at the implication of what she feared.
They hu
rried down the corridor and entered Shamus’s cabin, where the smell nearly stopped Nicholas in his tracks. He’d smelled this odor before and it never boded well. ’Twas the smell of death.
Light shone from several lanterns placed around the cabin. Shamus had pushed the bed sheets off, revealing the blood-soaked bandage. Sweat beaded his pale face. He tossed and turned, muttering incoherent words.
“My God, Emmaline—”
“We have to help him.” Emmaline hurried to the bunk.
“Emmaline—”
“We need to clean the wound. Phin said to use ale to flush out the bad humors, and to coat the wound in honey. I found honey in the galley. The cook always keeps some.”
“Emmaline.”
“We must use clean water—”
“Emmaline!” Nicholas shook her shoulders. Her mouth snapped shut and she looked up at him with tear-filled eyes. His heart clenched at her desperation. “It’s too late, sweetheart.”
She shook her head, dislodging the tears to course down her cheek. “It’s not. We can save him. I brought the ale and the honey. Oh, and clean bandages. I had the cook boil them.” She yanked her shoulders from his grasp, pulled a chair close to the bunk and began cutting away the bandage with a sharp stiletto.
She tossed the used bandage to the floor, revealing the inflamed wound leaking blood and puss.
“Hand me that bowl.” She lifted her chin toward the bowl at her feet.
Nicholas picked it up and handed it to her. He looked at Shamus’s sunken eyes and cracked lips. He’d seen men like this before and it never ended well. Shamus was going to die. Probably before dawn. They would best expend their energy sewing canvas together for a makeshift shroud.
“Emmaline—”
“Don’t say it. Don’t even say it, Nicholas Addison.” She held her knife in a white-knuckled grip, staring at the wound. “If you can’t help me, then get out. I’ll do it myself.”
Shamus moaned, arching his back, panting. Emmaline worked quickly, slicing open the wound even farther. Blood poured down Shamus’s side and coated Emmaline’s hands. Come hell or high water she was determined to save this man. How was this possible? By Shamus’s own admission, Emmaline had captured him and caused the wound. Except, when Nicholas thought back to that moment in the cabin when he laid Shamus back on the bed, he couldn’t remember Shamus saying that exactly.
What Shamus muttered was Emmaline’s pirate name. Nicholas reached the damning conclusion that she was the one who wounded him and left him in the cabin to die an injured captive.
Damn it all to hell. Had he been wrong?
He stepped forward. “What do you need me to do?”
“I need to flush the wound with ale. It will burn. You have to hold him down.”
Nicholas climbed onto the bunk and eased his legs beneath Shamus, holding onto his shoulders. Good God, how had Shamus made it this long? He burned with fever. Merely touching him made Nicholas hot.
Emmaline poured ale over the wound. Shamus screamed. His shoulders flexed and he surged up. Nicholas used all his weight to hold him down, but the man was strong, and when he reared back, Nicholas slammed against the wall, losing his hold.
“Damn it,” Emmaline cried out. “Hold him!”
“I’m trying.”
Emmaline threw herself over Shamus. She brushed his hair from his face and leaned close to speak to him quietly. He stilled, and she quickly returned to her seat to pour more ale into the wound.
Shamus’s eyes flew open, glazed with pain and fever. His body coiled to strike.
“Emmaline!” Nicholas yelled.
Shamus’s meaty fist came up, striking the bowl from her hands. The ale went flying, soaking the front of her shirt and Shamus’s torso.
Nicholas grabbed for his hands, but wasn’t quick enough. Shamus’s fist struck Emmaline on the jaw. Her head snapped sideways and she tumbled from the chair while Nicholas wrestled with Shamus.
Emmaline clambered back into the chair, a red welt already forming on her jaw.
“Are you all right?” Nicholas asked.
“I’m fine.”
Energy spent, Shamus lay still, panting, the last of his strength gone. Slowly Nicholas disengaged himself, but remained tense, waiting for Shamus to attack again.
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing. I’ve had worse.”
I’ve had worse? What the hell did that mean?
Emmaline dipped a cloth in a bowl of hot water and began cleansing the wound, which was now seeping bright red blood.
“Good,” she said, more to herself.
Nicholas sat back, Shamus’s head resting in his lap, and watched Emmaline’s gentle ministrations.
“What do you mean you’ve had worse?” He tried not to inflect his voice with emotion, while all he wanted to do was rise off this bed and shake some sense into her. I’ve had worse, indeed. This was no kind of life for her. If he had a lick of sense, Nicholas wouldn’t care what life she lead, but damn it he did care. He wanted to take her away from this, to a life she deserved. A life of leisure at his family’s country estate. She would like it there. The air was crisp and clear, and she would have room to take long walks.
Would she truly like it there? She hasn’t done badly out here on the ocean, has she?
“Come now, Mr. Addison, you know what this life is like.”
“I’m not a pirate, so, no, I don’t know.”
She slanted him a narrow-eyed look. “People are wounded in battle all the time.” She shrugged thin shoulders. “It happens.”
“Men are wounded in battle.” And women stay home to comfort them, when the wounded men return.
She made a rude noise, telling him exactly what she felt about his statement. How was it this woman managed to make him feel foolish at every turn, when he knew he was in the right? Women were not made to engage in warfare of any kind, be it pirating or what have you.
She closed the wound, her stitches small and tight, her fingers swift and true. Dipping her hands into another bowl, she brought them out dripping with golden honey and smeared it over the wound. It was hard to believe such delicate hands could effortlessly wield a sword, or climb rigging to save young sailors.
“You’ve done this before,” Nicholas said.
“A time or two.” She covered the wound with clean bandages and sat back with a sigh. Nicholas rested his head against the wall, not yet willing to leave the bunk, should Shamus awaken and start thrashing about again.
Emmaline wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and offered him a worried look.
“How did you know about the honey? And why clean bandages? Won’t any bandages work?”
She shook her head. “Phin taught me about the honey. He also said dirty bandages cause the wound to putrefy.”
Phin. Nicholas’s jaws came together with a crack and his fists clenched against the unwanted emotion broadsiding him. Why wasn’t Phin here with her if he was so full of wisdom? Why did she come to him in the middle of the night to save her sailor?
The silence of the cabin wrapped around them, the lanterns giving off soft light. Together they watched Shamus breathe, while they barely breathed themselves.
“Do you think it will work?” he whispered.
“Yes.” The word came out strong, as if saying it forcefully would make it true.
Nicholas didn’t contradict her, though in his heart he believed Shamus was lost to them. He’d never seen a man recover from such a festering wound, and he’d seen many such wounds in his time.
“I assumed you caused this, but obviously you did not.”
Emmaline kept her eyes on Shamus’s face. Her hair fell around her shoulders, the short, flyaway pieces that framed her face matting to her forehead with sweat. Testimony to how hard she fought to save Shamus’s life.
“How did he receive the wound?” Nicholas asked.
She drew in a deep breath and straightened her spine. Several heartbeats of silence passed, and Nicholas thought
she wasn’t going to answer. When she did, her voice was soft, almost timid—if one could use such a word to describe her.
“I thought he was attacking her.” She looked at him with guilt-ridden, haunted eyes. “He was carrying her away and she was screaming. I thought … I thought he was going to rape her.”
Nicholas looked down at the man whose head was cradled in his lap. At first glance, Shamus looked like any other pirate, and appeared to be a man with no morals. But Nicholas was quickly learning that what was on the outside wasn’t necessarily the same as what was on the inside.
“She was merely scared,” she said.
“Who was scared?”
She fiddled with the bandage, not looking at him. “The daughter of the captain of the merchant vessel we attacked.”
Nicholas’s shoulders tensed, for he knew well which merchant vessel she referred to. The attack he’d witnessed through his porthole. The attack that might possibly ruin his life, if it became known he had been on board while it happened.
“She was simply a little girl. No more than twelve. She panicked and was about to jump overboard. Shamus grabbed her and carried her away. She screamed. I …”
She blinked and turned her head away, but not before he saw a lone tear travel down her cheek. How often did she cry in private? How many times did she straighten her shoulders and push away tears? How strong did she have to be to captain three ships and command hundreds of men?
Being a captain took its toll on even the strongest of men. But a woman?
He pictured Emmaline high up on the yardarm, pulling the boy to safety. Many captains wouldn’t have done that. Many captains would have watched the boy flail about until he fell to his death.
Emmaline—Lady Anne—was a lot stronger than most of the men Nicholas knew.
“So he was saving her?” he prompted.
“I thought he was going to attack her.” She straightened the bedsheet over Shamus’s hips. “I tried to stop him.” Her gaze grew troubled. “I’m unsure what happened. He attacked me. I fought back. We ended up in a skirmish.”
“You stabbed him.” Shamus had been telling the truth.
The Notorious Lady Anne: A Loveswept Historical Romance Page 10