It was supplanted at last with dark amusement. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck, traveling the road of his spine. My pride dissolving, he thought, sardonically.
She was steering him skillfully to the conclusion she wanted.
As she had, in a way, all evening, he realized suddenly.
I’ll be damned.
She didn’t gloat. She made her moves and then looked up at him with calm, if wary, expectance, signaling with those vivid, fatigue-ringed eyes that it was his turn.
And eventually something else stirred, something unwelcome and unexpected very begrudging: admiration.
Behind that smooth, pale forehead her mind clicked along with an easy and unexpected precision, a knack for strategy that might have been channeled into some masculine pursuit—perhaps battlefield maneuvers, or torturing prisoners—and might have served a useful purpose. Might not have tormented her the way he was certain it did, given her demonstrable predilection for rashness. Still, some women threw themselves into good works, he thought sourly. Perhaps he ought to suggest it to Miss Redmond.
Who taught you to play chess? With whom do you play? One of your brothers?
It seemed to him the sort of game she’d have no patience for. And yet…and yet…she was so dogged in pursuit of her brother. So very convinced of the truth of her quest, however absurd it seemed on the surface, however reckless.
What is it like? To love so fiercely, to feel so part of a family, of a place?
Soon enough he would have the luxury of building his own destiny—Le Chat was the means to his ends.
He refused to allow silence to draw curiosity out of him in the form of questions. He was certain Miss Redmond would know precisely how to exploit curiosity, interpret it as some kind of softening. But silence had a way of splintering things into details, for the mind disliked disengagement. He’d learned this in a Turkish prison. It could turn moments of nothingness into diversions. And he couldn’t help but notice things in the silence. A tiny punctuation mark of a mole drew the eye to the elegant half-heart shape of the top lip, the soft full swoop of the lower. Her skin took the lamplight the way a good pearl would. Fine-grained and unlined thanks to the lifelong protection of bonnets and hats.
Odd. He rarely viewed women in terms of…parts. Primarily he simply heartily partook of women and they of him. And now he was thinking of Fatima and not of the game. He shifted restlessly.
You underestimate me, Captain Flint.
And yet he’d so seldom underestimated anyone. He was freshly reminded of how dangerous it was to do so.
He’d learned another humbling lesson in prison: how to accept one’s fate like a man. He knew his chess doom was about two moves away. And so he manfully waited for Violet to make the first of those moves.
After a moment he noticed that she was taking inordinately long to do it.
She sighed, and her head tipped into her hand, which received it as though her palm had been carved specifically to fit her chin.
He waited.
And waited.
And wait—
He frowned. Leaned across the board slowly, tentatively…and peered. A strand of dark hair clung to her lips. It was slowly, rhythmically fluttering. Her eyelids, which he’d thought downcast in thought…were closed. Her lashes shivered on her cheeks.
She’d fallen asleep!
Well!
He leaned back in his chair, greatly amused. He crossed his arms over his chest.
Apart from that wayward strand of hair, she still looked as though she’d stepped out of a toilette presided over by French maids. Was this neatness a skill or an aberration? Somehow Violet Redmond didn’t seem mussable, and mussability, in his opinion, was critical to the sensual appeal of any woman. And she wasn’t one of those women who looked innocent in their sleep, despite that strand of soft hair fluttering over that decidedly lush mouth. He couldn’t imagine her ever being restful, the sort of woman who could soothe as well as pleasure a man, and Fatima excelled at this. Even now, Violet Redmond’s eyelashes shivered against the pale blue skin beneath her eyes as though they could barely contain the rush of foolish plans.
He could almost pity the Redmond men, for surely keeping her restrained was a battle they’d been destined to lose.
He was wickedly tempted to allow gravity to have its way with her. There would be some satisfaction in seeing her face drift inexorably down toward the chessboard, in imagining her awakening the next morning with an imprint of a rook on her cheek and the drool of sleep gluing her to the board.
Mussed, in other words.
She breathed in…breathed out.
Breathed in…breathed out.
Breathed in…breathed—
Bloody hell. He drew in a sharp breath. Puffed it out forcefully. And slid his chair quietly back and stood.
He didn’t want her to wake up with a rook print on her check.
This realization irritated him. Could the Swedish fjords, for instance, claim any responsibility for their own majesty, for the respect they inspired? Or were they just made that way?
Violet Redmond was just made that way.
There was something about her inherent dignity he felt compelled to honor, as though some atavistic servile quality in him responded to her centuries of breeding.
It didn’t make him happy. But there it was.
He took another deep fortifying breath and bent low enough to scoop an arm behind her calves, and he got the other across her bent shoulders, and with some maneuvering he managed, awkwardly, to heave the sleeping woman up over one of his shoulders.
Oh God. The scent of her hair swamped his senses like sensual laudanum, induced a brief delicious paralysis. Her arms flopped down his back and her fingertips dangled tantalizingly across his arse, inconveniently reminding him of how long it had been since any woman’s fingertips had dangled over any sensitive parts of his body and communicating vivid suggestions to his groin. She muttered something irritably then—it sounded like “Lavay.” Surely not.
He forced himself to move. And his arm wrapped tightly around her deliciously female thighs, he hastened as quietly as he could across the room. For the duration of those three swift steps his deprived senses nearly shrieked “WOMAN! You’re holding a WOMAN! For God’s sake, you fool, a woman!” and lunged like chained dogs to savor how she felt, how she smelled, and it was everything he could do to keep his hands from wandering over his cargo.
But he’d known worse temptations. He wasn’t a boy.
And he deposited her on the bed—his bed—quickly and gently, rather the way one would deposit a grenade. She sighed and murmured and frowned, but her eyelids never lifted and her head tipped to the right and her mouth dropped open slightly.
He’d seldom seen a sleep so abandoned.
Bloody foolish girl, he thought with an invigorating surge of fury. He ought to call all the Redmond men out. Who had been so misguided as to allow her to take protection for granted, given her wild spirit, to trust so? She was so exhausted she’d fallen asleep in front of a strange man who was hardly harmless. Who was perfectly capable of making love to a woman he disliked to satisfy a physical urge. Of skillfully persuading any reluctant woman that she wanted him to do precisely that.
He was a man, after all, and it was how men were made.
He backed away from her, eager for the door. His hand was on the knob when he paused, shoulders slumping. He sighed. He turned. And took himself back to the chessboard.
And with two fingers, flicked his queen over onto her back.
Miss Redmond would see it when she woke the next morning. She’d discover he’d known the outcome of the game. And if she were clever enough, she’d understand that no matter what she did, he would always know what her next move would be.
“Checkmate,” he whispered dryly to himself.
And he took himself off to sleep in the vole hole.
Chapter 7
Violet awoke abruptly, but long moments passed before
she understood she wasn’t still dreaming. She recognized at once that she was fully clothed and swaying gently, as though a giant cradle held her. Startled, she fisted her hands in the counterpane to ascertain it was real, found it already warmed from sunlight pushing in through a blinded window. She saw strips of blue through the blinds. Sky. The rocking was caused by the sea. She was on…a ship.
Good God, she really was on a ship! Because of Lyon.
She took her first tentative breath, and the scent of the room was so overpoweringly, stimulatingly, foreign and masculine—smoke and cloves and starch and bay rum and sea and sweat—she sat bolt upright. Panicked. Which was when she discovered parts of her body were stiff from the unfamiliar mattress and that she’d kicked off one of her slippers during the night.
She peered beyond her feet, one slippered, one not, and saw in the room’s filtered light a fine mirror reflecting a startled, sleep-flushed woman hanging above a fine low chest of drawers laid out with men’s toiletries. In the corner was a washbasin perched on a washstand, with towels hung near. On one wall was a small fine painting of an exotic landscape—tawny beaches and fronded trees, mountains and small whitewashed houses; on another a great map was pinned; on another a dartboard. Two small, beautiful carpets, also exotic, in shades of ruby and cream covered the floors. Elegantly simple room, almost Spartan, and she suspected the things in it had been carefully chosen from his travels. She was suddenly reminded of Lyon taking only his rosewood box when he’d disappeared.
At the far end was a shelf of books she longed to inspect; near her were the two sturdy-backed chairs flanking a table upon which was…
Ah, yes. The chessboard.
Memory shifted into place in a backward rush when she saw the earl’s black queen lying prone as surely as if she’d been shot down.
Well.
She smiled slowly, and a surge of triumph and pleasure flushed her cheeks with warmth. He’d known she was about to win. Ha! He possessed enough honor to both acknowledge it and maintain the spirit of their agreement, too.
This was something of a surprise.
The smile faded as something occurred to her:
How did she get to the bed?
She didn’t recall a thing.
She frantically patted at herself and to reassure herself that her clothing was indeed on and fastened, then leaped to her feet to have a good poke around.
The ceiling was so low she felt both penned and securely enclosed. Her head didn’t brush the ceiling, but the earl probably crouched a bit to move around this room.
She disentangled herself from her bonnet strings and tried to massage some shape back into her poor slept-upon bonnet. She unpinned her hair in the mirror the captain no doubt used every morning. She pulled the hairpins from her hair, where they poked up out of it at odd angles, raked her fingers through it, twisted it up, and re-pinned it with breathtaking speed and efficiency, which would have to do until she was able to return to her trunk in the vole hole for a good hundred strokes with her brush. She knuckled kernels of sleep from her eyes, shook out her dress and patted it down, and inserted her foot into her slipper.
Now she could prowl.
First she studied the landscape; it was likely meaningful to the earl, she suspected, as it was the only picture in the room. She wandered over to where the mysterious male toiletries were lined, and after only a moment’s hesitation, lifted up his shaving soap for a sniff. She was just rediscovering the tantalizing whiff of the earl she’d had when he’d leaned in during the waltz when a knock at the door startled her, and her hands clamped suddenly. The soap shot from her hands and flew across the room, skidding to a halt under the bed.
Bloody hell.
“It’s Lord Lavay, Miss Redmond, with a breakfast for you.”
Lavay! The prospect of conversation with a handsome, easily charmed man cheered her, and the moment she heard the word breakfast her stomach whined like a punished mongrel. She dove for the soap and patted fruitlessly beneath the bed, but it remained out of reach. She gave up when he knocked again, and flew to the door and opened it.
Lavay took evident pleasure in just looking at her. Those gray eyes glowed in silent, subtle masculine approval. In other words, he didn’t appear to be about to lose himself in a frenzy of animalistic behavior.
“Good morning, Lord Lavay.” She curtsied. “I imagine the captain informed you I was aboard. Thank you so much for thinking of me. You are too kind.”
Violet took the tray from him. A domed tureen perched on top of it. She looked around the cabin for a spot to place it, and decided to carefully settle it next to the chessboard.
When she did, the fallen queen rolled a bit, as though suffering a stomachache. Violet didn’t yet want to right it; it reminded her of victory.
“Oh, yes. And Corcoran has been spreading your legend among the men on the ship. You’d think a mermaid had come up in one of the nets. We came to fisticuffs in the galley over who would have the honor of bringing breakfast to you, and I won.”
“Fisticuffs?” This sounded ominous. It was precisely what the captain had predicted. Good God, she’d already laid his crew low. She surreptitiously inspected Lavay for bruising. “And yet…you won?”
Mr. Lavay laughed. “Your skepticism wounds me to the very soul, Miss Redmond! Very well. I’ll confess the crew recalled my rank just as the discussion was growing heated. I apologize if I led you to believe you may have caused bloodshed.”
Bloodshed! It was likely the one thing in her life she hadn’t yet caused.
She supposed there was still time.
“Fear not, Mr. Lavay. I suspect I shall rapidly recover from my shock,” she said gravely.
Which made him smile slowly. “You’re not shocked at all.”
She returned his smile. Freshly taking his measure. Approving his insight and his humor. Oily, Jonathan had called him. Jonathan was likely simply envious. She found him just as elegant and unforced as when she’d first danced with him. He showed no signs of influencing her breathing or her temper the way the earl did.
Still…she recalled her profoundly self-contained brother Miles throwing a fist into Argosy’s face in the name of love. And of her brother Lyon vanishing and possibly taken to pirating. Reckless extremes and absurd behavior always seemed to accompany love.
Perhaps she was immune to love.
She wasn’t certain whether or not she was relieved at this notion.
“I find it intriguing that we should meet again under these circumstances,” he added. A leading statement to be sure. An invitation to expound. And how different this was from the captain’s relentless interrogation.
As if the thought of him conjured him, they both whirled guiltily at the sound of booted feet rapidly heading their way.
Seconds later something like an eclipse fell across the doorway.
“Good morning. I trust you slept comfortably, Miss Redmond.”
The earl’s voice was formal, bass, and brisker than a carafe of coffee poured down one’s gullet. It was the sort of voice that pulled spines straighter, would get a man’s head swiveling guiltily in search of work to do. She could only imagine the effect it had on his crew, since her head swiveled, too, and she had no intention of doing any work. Lavay, spine immediately straight, bowed crisply.
She didn’t think for an instant the earl cared very much how well she slept.
“I slept well, thank you for asking. Did…you?” she couldn’t resist adding cheekily.
He frowned repressively. He looked none the worse for his night in the vole hole; he was flawlessly groomed, bright-eyed, tight-jawed. He needed a shave. The shadow of whiskers suited him. Made his eyes bluer, somehow. Like windows out onto the ocean.
He glanced a question at the domed platter of food.
“Lord Lavay was gentleman enough to bring a breakfast to me.”
“He certainly is a gentleman,” the earl agreed, in a tone that implied she’d instead called Lavay a “son of a bitch” and he q
uite concurred. “Lavay, you have duties to see to.” His crisp captain’s intonation made it clear that Miss Redmond fell distinctly into the category of “pleasures.”
“Of course, sir. I simply thought to relieve you of the burden of feeding our guest.”
An interesting, infinitesimal pause followed. The two men regarded each other evenly. Lavay was about the same height as the earl, but he hadn’t the earl’s air of arrogance and impatience, which was why in part he seemed to take up more than his fair share of air.
The ship gave a sway, sending the soap sliding gracefully out from under the bed. It came to rest at the earl’s feet, as if eager to join the conversation.
He stared down at it. Clearly bemused. He bent to pick it up. Hefted it in his hand.
Then stared at Violet, eyebrows arched sardonically.
She gave him wide-eyed innocence.
“She’s not a guest, Mr. Lavay. She’s an invader as surely as a pirate or a termite, and we shall relieve ourselves of the burden, as you say, of her soon enough.”
Good heavens. This sounded ominous. Perhaps he’d decided to cast her overboard, anyway, thanks to an unpleasant night’s sleep.
Another silence, during which expressions remained impassive but she sensed Lavay was somewhat surprised. She waited breathlessly to see if he would step gallantly into the breach.
“A…termite?” The traitor was clearly amused.
Flint’s mood, however, matched his name. “We shall of course extend to Miss Redmond all courtesy and respect due her station for the duration of her stay, which will be until we reach the next port. Which means two days, if the wind remains fair. I trust those are your rations, Mr. Lavay, you’ve donated to her breakfast?”
Said with almost no inflection. But the abrupt silence was the sound of Lavay’s surprise. She sensed Flint had meant a jab, though she didn’t fully understand why.
“I took up a collection from among the crew,” Mr. Lavay volunteered smoothly. “It’s a combination, shall we say, of everyone’s morning rations.”
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