My Seductive Innocent

by Julie Johnstone

  “Sophia,” she interrupted. “Call me Sophia.”

  He inclined his head. “As you wish it.”

  She smiled weakly and glanced at his wife. “You must call me Sophia, too.”

  The woman nodded, reached into her reticule, and held out a handkerchief to Sophia. “You must call me Amelia. My dear, you are crying.”

  Sophia glanced at the handkerchief still in Amelia’s grasp, then swiped a hand across her cheek and blinked in surprise. Amelia was right. She was crying. Her world was spinning out of control. She took the handkerchief and dabbed first her cheeks and then her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sure Nathan would be mortified at my display.”

  Amelia smiled and then hugged Sophia. “And I’m sure he’d be pleased to know you care so much.”

  Sophia was so grateful to have Amelia and her husband here to buffer Nathan’s aunt. And she was glad, she supposed, his cousin was here, too. He seemed nice enough, though he did keep casting wary glances between her and his mother. She took a long, steadying breath. “What can I do to help find him?”

  “He’d want you to stay here where it’s safe,” the duke replied, and Amelia nodded her agreement.

  Amelia squeezed Sophia’s hand. “I’m sure they will locate him in a few days. In the meantime, we will stay here with you, if you would like.”

  “All of you?” Sophia couldn’t help but hope Lady Anthony was leaving.

  Mr. Ellison nodded. “Yes. We should be together at a time like this. We are family.”

  She thought she saw a grim smile pull at Lady Anthony’s lips. Family. Her heart, which she’d been sure could not splinter further proved her wrong and opened like a yawning, cavernous hole. The sound of the crack echoed in her ears. Nathan and her brother were her family. Certainly not his aunt. And she didn’t know his cousin well enough to judge yet.

  She grasped Amelia’s hand, very glad she had offered to stay. She felt more at ease with her and the duke than Nathan’s relatives, and that realization sent a pang of sadness through her for Nathan. She struggled to fight the tears that threatened to come again.

  Ravensdale’s men held both Nathan’s arms as the man’s fist connected with his face time and again. The ship he’d woken up on dipped underneath his feet in the rough, stormy waters, but the movement didn’t stop Ravensdale’s onslaught. The sound of bone crunching filled Nathan’s ears, and darkness overtook him.

  He awoke in blackness to a boot kicking him in the side. It connected with his ribs and he coughed until he thought he might die. Several pairs of hands gripped him and jerked him to his feet. His head lolled as he was dragged out of the darkness and into the bright day. Immediately, he was blinded, unaccustomed now to the light. And the sounds―the lapping of waves, calls of the birds overhead, men moving about the ship and talking, and the hum of the water parting as the ship glided across it―were deafening, threatening to drive him mad.

  A hand gripped the back of his still-lolling head and yanked up his face. He forced himself to open his eyes, though the fever ravaging his body made even that slight task seem almost impossible. Ravensdale stood before him with a smirk on his face. “Ready to address me as captain yet?”

  Nathan didn’t bother to answer. He simply spat at Ravensdale’s boots.

  His reward was a hard jab to the gut that sent him slumping forward almost to the ground, except he was snatched back up at the last moment. Ravensdale stepped so close to Nathan he could smell the liquor seeping out of the fiend’s pores. “I’ll tell you what, Scarsdale. Since you refuse to call me Captain, I’m going to make a special trip back to Whitecliffe after I leave you with the pirates, and I’m going to find your new duchess and bed her every way you can imagine.”

  Rage exploded in Nathan’s head and through his veins in painful shots. He roared and wrenched his arms out of the grip of the man who held him and locked his hands around Ravensdale’s neck with only one thought in mind. He was going to kill him. He was going to cut off his air and watch him die.

  Ravensdale’s face turned red and white as he clawed at Nathan’s hands. The thugs grabbed him, trying to tear him away from Ravensdale. He thought he heard shouting, but his blood roared in his ears as he pictured Ravensdale touching Sophia. Someone punched him in the side, but he didn’t move, didn’t flinch. He squeezed harder and harder, determination making him feel invincible. Something hit him in the head with such force his legs buckled instantly and blackness consumed him once more.

  His legs were on fire! Nathan’s eyes popped open, and he tried to surge upward to bat at his legs but he was tied down. He squinted against the light, and when his eyes finally adjusted, he opened them slowly, again to the face of Ravensdale. Nathan’s gaze immediately went to the man’s black-and-blue neck. Ravensdale’s eyes narrowed on him. “You surprised me with your determination to kill me, Scarsdale. I didn’t think you had murder in you.”

  Nathan swallowed, his throat incredibly dry. “For you I have it in me.” His voice was cracked and creaky, not having been used much in the days since he’d been taken.

  “You’ll not get another chance,” Ravensdale said and motioned behind him. A young boy stepped forward holding a bucket that sloshed. “Again,” Ravensdale commanded as he stepped back and the boy stepped forward, then tilted his bucket over Nathan’s legs. Instant heat seared the gash and the bullet wound in his legs, and he had to fight blacking out again. Salt water. The sting of the salt against the raw open wounds felt akin to being set on fire. Nathan gritted his teeth against the pain, which ebbed slightly, and perspiration dampened his brow.

  Ravensdale motioned the boy away and moved back toward Nathan. “The physician will be here shortly to examine you.”

  “Afraid to untie me?” Nathan croaked.

  “Not afraid. Just smart. You’re going to stay locked below for the next two days until we reach Saint-Malo. I’ll be stopping there to pick up a Barbary corsair I’m hiring and to hand you over to be a slave on his brother’s ship—payment for the corsair’s services in helping me capture some white slaves, you see. I must thank you, really. Your betrayal has made me quite rich.”

  “Glad I could be of service,” Nathan snarled as the door banged open and a pirate came in with an older man leaning heavily against him while singing a lusty tune. The pirate looked at Ravensdale. “Dr. Rowley’s been at the spirits again.”

  The man lifted his gray head. “I’ve only had four drinks.”

  Ravensdale growled under his breath. “Damn it, man. I told you I need you to sew him up”―he motioned at Nathan―“and retrieve the bullet. I need him alive.”

  “I can do it,” Rowley said on a hiccup. “Bring me my thread and needle.”

  Nathan’s blood turned icy and his muscles jumped. A bad physician was worse than no physician, but he wasn’t in a position to put up a fight.

  Within moments, the man was sitting beside him and leaned over his leg. “Do you want him to have laudanum for the pain?” he asked Ravensdale, who stood directly behind him.

  Ravensdale’s gaze locked with Nathan’s and he smirked. “I know how you love laudanum, but I find I want to see you squirm.”

  Nathan was careful not to show his relief. He didn’t welcome the pain, but he didn’t want to take the drug he’d felt unable to live without before. “I won’t be very entertaining.”

  “We shall see,” Ravensdale commented and motioned to the physician to begin.

  Each jab of the needle made bile rise in Nathan’s throat, causing it to burn and his eyes to water. He didn’t cry out during the stitching of his gashed leg but he did shake, and he hated himself for showing weakness.

  When the physician was finished, he sat up and mopped his sweating brow as Ravensdale peered over the man’s shoulder at Nathan’s throbbing leg. “You’ve made a mess of it, Rowley. You’re too foxed to retrieve the bullet today with those trembling hands. You’d kill him, and I’ve plans for him. Get yourself sober, or I’ll kill you,” Ravensdale snarled. The physician b
acked out of the room with mumbled apologies and Nathan was left alone with Ravensdale, who walked over to a counter and came back holding a bottle.

  He shook the glass bottle at Nathan. “I’ve changed my mind about the laudanum,” Ravensdale said. He leaned over Nathan, and after much struggling, pried his jaw open and poured the contents of the bottle down Nathan’s throat. The familiar sweet liquid made Nathan want to gag. He tried to spit it back up, but Ravensdale clamped both hands over his mouth and leaned against his chest. “If you don’t swallow, you may choke, and I’m in the mind to let you do it. Then I’ll go visit your wife and comfort her.”

  Black fury blanketed Nathan as he swallowed and watched helplessly as Ravensdale turned and left him alone. Images of Sophia being ravaged by Ravensdale tormented him. He turned his mind toward escape. Ravensdale’s cockiness made him careless, and Nathan was to be sold to a pirate in two days. If he had any chance of getting away he had to do it the day they were docked. He’d never make it off a ship run by pirates alive. His mind began to feel groggy, but he fought the pull of sleep and concentrated on his plan. Ambush from his cell seemed the most likely, but he would need to be unchained. How to get unchained? As he struggled to figure out the details, sleep claimed him.

  The ground underneath Nathan swayed as he awoke. Or at least he thought it was the ground. He tried to open his eyes, but when he did, pain so great he almost cried out vibrated up his right leg. His left leg had a dull throbbing pain. Grunting, he tried again and got his lids open enough to see more blackness.

  Moaning and creaking filled the heavy, damp air around him.

  He was in hell.

  Where you deserve to be.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and struggled to sift through the thick fog blanketing his mind. At first, nothing came, and then awareness hit him in nauseating pangs. He was on Ravensdale’s ship, and Ravensdale intended to find Sophia and harm her.

  Nathan’s gut clenched, and he rolled to his side, dry heaving repeatedly until he was left panting. Intense agony radiated from his right leg, onto which he’d rolled. He struggled to his back and lay there trying not to retch again. It felt as if sand filled his mouth.

  Christ.

  He needed... “Water.” The sound of his raw voice shocked him. How long had he been out since being sewn up?

  “There’s no water to be had, Your Grace.”

  Your Grace? Whoever was in here with him knew him. Nathan tried to recall who that might be, but his memory wouldn’t cooperate. Unwilling to reveal the weakness, he kept quiet and forced his eyes open as much as possible. He held his hand in front of his face. He couldn’t see his arm, but he knew it was there because he touched his nose with his fingertips. His nose felt wrong. Crooked and caked with something crusty. He ran a finger down the bridge. The unfamiliar sharp veer of his nose to the left told him Ravensdale had broken it.

  “You all right?” came the deep voice again from the dark.

  Nathan ignored the voice and the other sounds, which were muffled and came from somewhere above, for the moment. Whether the man knew him or not, he didn’t know if a friend or enemy was near. Though he thought he heard concern in the tone, he didn’t trust himself enough in his current state to decide anything too quickly. Wincing, he reached up and fingered the bridge of his nose again. When he inhaled, the high-pitched sound of air trying to enter his nasal passages pierced his ears.

  He’d once seen a boxer at Gentleman Jackson’s straighten his own broken nose. Nathan clutched his nose with one hand and the floor with the other. Wet, slick slime met his fingertips, and a shudder coursed through him. With grim determination, he inhaled a sharp breath and jerked his nose back to the right.

  Nausea gripped him, but when he inhaled, air came through his nose this time. Water leaked a steady stream out of his eyes. He wiped the moisture away, the gesture reminding him of wiping Sophia’s tears from her soft cheek. His chest hurt at the memory of her, and a throbbing regret consumed him.

  Regret would have to wait. The time for survival was at hand.

  “Where am I?” he demanded of the unknown man.

  “We’re locked in a cell in the far corner of the cargo hold. You were passed out when they dragged you in here,” he explained. “The captain delivered you personally with one of his crew.”

  “Captain, is it?” Nathan sneered.

  The man made a derisive noise from his throat. “He’s a renegade privateer who works with the Barbary corsairs to capture white slaves. He’s a bit of a legend on the sea.”

  “You’re a seaman?”

  “Your Grace, I work for you. It’s Stephens.”

  “Stephens?” Instantly, Nathan had a mental picture of a scrawny, redheaded young man who could not be more then nineteen. Nathan felt his lower jaw part open. The simple movement caused pain to radiate once more. “How the hell did you end up in here?”

  “I saw Ravensdale and his man carrying you onto their ship and I tried to rescue you.”

  “Oh Christ, Stephens. I’m sorry.”

  “You would have done the same for me, Your Grace. They stuck me in this cell after dragging me on board, and I’ve been here ever since.”

  Nathan swatted at something crawling up his arm while he forced himself to sit up. Light danced in his vision, but it was only speckles from his efforts. He swayed where he sat until he collapsed backward once again.

  With the hesitancy of one fearing to find a limb gone, he searched his throbbing leg until his fingers came to the bullet wound. Around the wound, the skin felt soft. Too soft. Like mushed porridge. When he inhaled, the foul stench of rotting flesh filled his nose. The wound was festering. He moved his leg, suddenly afraid he no longer could. And then realization struck: he was unchained.

  “Have we docked in Saint-Malo yet?” he demanded, fighting the fear that he’d missed his only opportunity to escape.

  “No, Your Grace. We’ll be there tomorrow, according to the conversations I’ve managed to overhear.”

  Relief made Nathan fall back against the deck with a thud. He lay there and struggled to concentrate. Sweat dripped down his forehead and hot flashes consumed him. He didn’t need to be a physician to know a fever was ravaging him. Trying to sort out the details in his mind of what he needed to do was like walking through the thick mud of the riverbank near his home after a long storm. Impossibly slow-going.

  He shoved himself up and turned in the darkness to Stephens. He still couldn’t see the man, but he could smell the sticky stench of unwashed skin. He owed this man a debt for trying to stop Ravensdale and his men from dragging him aboard this ship while he was unconscious. “I have to get this bullet out before tomorrow. I’ll be of no use to you if I don’t.”

  “Because you’ll be too weak?”

  “Because I’ll likely be dead.”

  “I’ll call for the guard,” Stephens said hastily. “Ravensdale said to call for a guard if you looked like you were taking a turn for the worse.”

  “Wait one moment. We need a plan. Last time Ravensdale poured laudanum down my throat. If I’m asleep when you feel the ship being docked at port, awaken me. You’ll call the guard and say I’m dead, and when he comes, we’ll overtake him.” The guard carried a cutlass and a pistol, and Nathan planned to take both. He’d find the strength. Somewhere. Somehow.

  “And then we’ll fight our way out of here?”

  “Hopefully, we will sneak out of here. But if we’re spotted we’ll fight until the death.”

  “Hopefully not ours,” Stephens said.

  “I should hope not, as well. My wife would not like that at all,” he said, trying for levity, but it felt as if a hand gripped his heart and was squeezing it like a vise. “Go ahead and call for the guard.”

  The shuffling of feet sounded in the small cell, and then Stephens started yelling for the guard. Within moments, the groan of the hatch opening filled the room, and in the distance, a lantern light seemed to bob in the dark as if suspended from nothing. Footsteps
clapping toward them filled the air, followed by the clank of jingling keys. Now Nathan could make out a tall man with a covered head and a beard holding the keys in one hand and a pistol in the other. The cell door creaked.

  “What?” the guard snarled.

  “His Grace is dying,” Stephens supplied.

  “His Grace is dyin’,” the man mimicked while lowering the lantern to shine it in Nathan’s eyes.

  Nathan immediately had to shield his eyes from the bright light.

  The guard smirked at him. “Can His Grace get his arse up?”

  “I’ll manage,” Nathan replied and slowly started the process of shoving to his feet. Once he was standing, he took a step toward the guard and Stephens, but his weakness caused him to stumble and he ended up crashing into both men.

  The guard shoved him hard in the chest. “Get off me.”

  Nathan eased toward Stephens, grateful for the man’s hand as it clasped his arm and held him steady.

  “You,” the guard barked at Stephens, “you make sure he don’t fall on his face on the way to the captain’s cabin. If the captain wants you to live so bloody much, I don’t see why he hasn’t ordered the bullet taken out of your leg,” the guard grumbled.

  “That would be because he desires me to suffer as much as possible,” Nathan replied as he leaned against Stephens. They followed the guard out the cell, across the cargo hold, and up the creaking ladder into a dim passageway. The trek from the cell to the captain’s cabin left Nathan panting, sweating, and on the verge of passing out. It also left him with a gnawing sense of how difficult escaping would be tomorrow.

  “Your Grace?” Stephens nudged him in the side, and Nathan blinked, realizing he’d been caught in a haze of his own thoughts.