Sweet Vengeance

by St. Michel, Elizabeth

  She turned in her chair. Thorne had a clear view of full breasts that rose and fell with her breathing. It was a scattered set of impressions he dealt with. His fingers flexed on the arms of his chair. He cupped his hands as if to weigh the creamy mounds in his hands.

  Images blended. An elusive familiarity surrounded his cabin boy, alias Miss Hansford. Lucky Lucette had massive dark ponderous breasts. The woman he made love to had just the right size. A sharp vision sizzled through his mind. The woman he made love to was light to Lucette’s dark. Another flash seared his brain, so strong that for a fractured second, it hurt to think. The woman he made love to was slim and small not large and brawny like Lucette. Hadn’t he locked Abe in the cabin?

  Enos threw down his napkin. “If I had a gold piece for every time Lieutenant Lawton told me he missed Helena, this ship would sink.”

  Abby laughed and with a wistful expression said, “Ma générosité est aussi illimitée que la mer, Mon amour est profond: plus je te donne…My bounty is as boundless as the sea. My love is deep, the more I give to thee.”

  Thorne jerked his head up. His mind broke through the chatter. Weren’t those same words whispered to him that night? No way in hell would a French courtesan know Shakespeare. But the educated daughter of a gold merchant would know.

  Thorne dropped his chair to four legs in a loud bang. Damn. The undeniable truth of having sex with his cabin boy hit him dead center. But Abe wasn’t a boy. Blessedly that fact did nothing to assuage the disgust he held. The reality was−he had deflowered a virgin, and all the ramifications with it, slammed into to him like a tidal wave.

  Abigail was so enjoying herself, she did not see Thorne’s incline of head, barely aware of Simeon retrieving the dishes and scarcely conscious of the men departing. She turned in her chair. Enos bid his adieu and closed the door, the last to go. Over steepled fingers, Thorne glared at her, his face ominous. Abby blinked. For the life of her, she could not fathom his sudden change in behavior or his simmering animosity.

  Her voice suffocated as that pair of piercing cobalt blue eyes bore into her like lightening searing through the sky...cold, probing, speculative eyes. Knowing eyes. She paled. Dear God.

  He knew.

  “You were the virgin in my bed.”

  Chapter 19

  Get away. Abby stood and pivoted, took two steps. Her skirts hampered her speed. A chair crashed. An arm shot from behind. The bolt slammed into place. He caught her and swung her around, flat against the door. She fought him, tried to ply his hand from her arm. The night they had laid together remained far too vivid in her memory. Alone with Thorne, in his cabin, and with the door barred against entry from the rest of the crew, she was far too vulnerable. She wanted to be safe, to have Thorne on the other side, and the door barred between them. She thrust her palms up against his chest, anything to separate her from a hard rock wall of muscle and tendon. Blindly, she shoved, dislodging him. He fell into the table. A wine bottle plunged to the floor.

  “Stop it.” He took her hands then held her against the door. “We will have this out.”

  Abby stilled her frantic thrashing. Thorne’s discovery hung over her like a shroud. Indecision raged at her, and tears she refused to shed, ached in her eyes. No way would she let him intimidate her. Squaring her shoulders, she reminded herself of her resolution to be wise.

  “So, you figured it all out,” she said. But how? In the waning silence, her blood pounded wildly in her ears.

  His thighs crushed her quaking limbs. He tilted her head back and she considered his unyielding face, consciously aware of the weight of his body, conscious of her breasts pressed to his chest, and too aware of his increasing arousal pressed rock hard alongside her abdomen. Abby moaned. Moisture popped from his pores and the scent of sweet wine and male filled her nostrils. She stopped struggling. No. She would not misjudge his strength or his ardor.

  “Let me go,” she ordered, her voice far from the bravado of that command.

  His breathing uneven, he took a step back, his hands slowly moved down her arms. Thorne refused to let go. “We have matters to discuss.”

  “I will not disappear.” She studied his hands on her arms afraid if he let go she would collapse to the floor. He yanked her to a chair.

  “Sit,” he barked out in that implacable authority she loathed.

  The room spun. If only she hadn’t drunk so much wine. Abby grudgingly complied. With the revelation of what had happened in his bed was the small satisfaction that he was rattled as much as she. Thorne kicked up his overturned chair, propped his foot upon it. Like a specimen beneath a magnifying glass, he scrutinized her.

  “That’s better now.”

  Her voice cracked. “What do you want?”

  “I intend to find out what the hell is going on,” he said darkly.

  She lifted her chin. “If you already know, then what is there to tell?”

  “I already know the truth. Now I want to know how it happened.” He leaned toward her, brushed her arm and for one second, thought he’d do violence. He retrieved the wine bottle and slapped it on the table.

  “I don’t owe you any explanations.” She looked away, pointedly ignoring him. Out the transom windows a storm boiled to the south. The air was like soup. Clouds covered the moon and the last of moonlight dancing on the water diminished as dark as pitch.

  He cupped her chin in his hand and lowered his face, inches from hers. “You do owe me an explanation. This is my ship. I am the captain.”

  Abby licked her lips. “Of course, only a boorish Colonial would resort to threaten a woman. What next? Keelhauling?”

  He gripped her. “Damn. You will tell me and tell me quickly.” He drew her face closer to the wavering light. Thorne loomed larger than ever, his face demonic, his winter cold, blue eyes skewering her. With his other hand he touched her hair, examining it as if it weren’t real. Illusions shattered. He then drew a calloused finger down her cheek and over the curve of her lips. She inhaled. A low rumbling chuckle emanated from deep in his chest. Had he gone insane?

  “How do you know the crew will not return?” she challenged.

  “I commanded it.”

  “I did not hear it.”

  “They know when I’m not to be disturbed.”

  Her hands balled into fists and she darted a glance at the door, weighing the time it would take for her to reach it, throw the bolt and dash up to the deck. But where would she go?

  “Don’t even try it,” he warned. “I should have bathed you the day I captured the Civis.” He straightened but not for one second did he relax. He dropped his hands as if she were not worth his contempt. It was that sweeping gesture that angered Abby.

  “You think I will plead for my deliverance from you? Do you think I will beg for absolution for what happened? Or bend to some misplaced pride and honor you carry around like a shield? I do not hold you accountable for events nor do I expect anything from you.”

  She choked. “Just leave me alone.” Through a blur of tears, she did not see the myriad of changes mirrored on Thorne’s face, numb to the workings of his mind. She cried for her parents, for her brothers and all the injustices she had gone through and now this. Gruffly, she heard him speak and when he lifted her face up to his, the anger in his tone had softened.

  “Abby, I just want to know, why?”

  “Why?” She cried more. How did she explain when she didn’t even know herself? Her senses were so dulled by the wine. She couldn’t even think and started blubbering about the events that led up to them ending up in his bed. She described how Lucette, the prostitute had attempted to rob him and carve his face. How she had awakened from her pallet and fought with the prostitute to save him. How she had ordered Lucette to be thrown overboard but by Pascale’s good graces, the black had rowed her to shore. Thorne produced a handkerchief and she blew her nose.

  “Abby, you still haven’t told me why.” His tone brooked no argument.

  Abby truly wished he’d go away,
his presence wreaking havoc on the peace she so desperately needed. Rain smacked against the windows, drops as big as herrings.

  “My coat.”

  When he frowned, she nodded to him, affirming the truth. “It was my coat. When you locked me in the cabin for spying on you, I figured you wouldn’t be back for the night. In my anger, I threw my clothes about the room and took a bath. I went to sleep without putting my clothes back on.” Heat rose to her cheeks with that part of the confession. “You were drunk and asleep and I couldn’t get my coat from beneath you. I had to retrieve my coat before you discovered me in the morning. I tugged and pulled. You awoke…thought I was Lucette. I played along, hoping you would fall back asleep. So you see…” she sniffed, “…it was all for a coat.”

  Thorne rubbed the back of his neck. He was getting a clear picture of the events of that night. Damn. He had taken her maidenhead. He had forced himself on an innocent girl who only sought to survive, a helpless girl in his care. It slammed into his gut with such a force he could barely breathe.

  But there was more to the story. He wanted answers and neither would he settle for the coat as an alibi. “You still haven’t told me why, Abby.”

  She pulled her arm across her eyes like Abe would do, momentarily forgetting the unladylike gesture. “Go on.” He wanted to hear it. He wanted all her explanation.

  On a ragged breath, she peered up at him. Her clear blue eyes brimmed with tears. Like a wounded animal, she beseeched him. “From the time you took us aboard from the Civis, you showed mercy to a boy and an old man. You gave the boy a job, defended him against torment by the crew, took the time to teach him to read, and despite his fear of heights, made him climb to the top of the mast to see a beautiful world he would never have the chance to see otherwise. You put up with a boy’s sarcasm, seeing through his bluster as fear. You showed benevolence inherent in your nature.”

  Thorne sighed. “That’s not all of the story−” He wanted to hear her say it. To atone him for his sin and that he wouldn’t be damned in the eyes of God. He hated the fact that he insisted on her honesty and that because he had come to care for her more than he should have that she might loathe him for what had transpired. “There’s more isn’t there? I forced you against your will?”

  Her voice dropped to a whisper. “No.” She shook her head, filled with shame and helplessness, and a million other feelings Thorne could not recognize.

  “No?” he repeated. A potent feeling of relief surged through him. “Where am I wrong?” he asked, his voice low, but insistent. “Tell me, where my reasoning is flawed.”

  It was a truth Abby could not name, so intangible, and so significant. He did not thunder out a command like he did with his crew. No. He asked her gently, less incriminatingly, almost pleading for her honesty. Memories flooded of his incredible, powerful lovemaking. How he made her feel like a woman. How he made her feel with his whispered words of praise, his heady fervor, his kisses, his touch, his hands on her neck, her breasts, everywhere to make her keen with desire. It was the most wonderful experience in the world. And part of her wanted to make him hurt for what he had done, to extract a promise from him to take her to England. But that would not be the truth. To add this lie to the many other lies she had told would damn her forever. “Once I was in your bed, I did not want to leave,” she answered in a muffled whisper. Mortified she covered her face with her hands, to shut out the intensity of his gaze, and to hide her inner soul.

  Abby did not see the tenderness in his slow smile, or sense the rawness that burst in his chest. “Take your hands away, Abby and look at me,” he commanded.

  Slowly she pulled her hands away. He extended his hand to her. “Come, Abby.”

  On shaky limbs, Abby stood up and walked over to him, her sense of right and wrong lurched with the magnitude of what was to unfold. He was supposed to be her enemy. He was a privateer fighting against her country. If he knew she was Lady Abigail Hansford Rutland he would hate her, and hate her for deceiving him, a sin, a man like Thorne would never forgive. Hesitantly, she placed her hand in his warm palm, watching as his long, tanned fingers closed around hers. The compelling look in his eyes, the extraordinary reassurance in the warmth of his grip all but made her knees buckle beneath her.

  And when his arms encircled her, drawing her against his hard, muscular length, and his parted lips touched hers, robbing her of speech and breath, her sense of right and wrong blurred, and she surrendered to his complete and total possession.

  “I am sorry, Abby. Can you forgive me?”

  Jacob had taken her innocence without knowing it, and imagined the violence of what a drunken rum-soaked fool had done. Yet this sweet vulnerable woman, who he was completely accountable for, absolved his guilt by her admission.

  Once I was in your bed, I did not want to leave.

  The soft magic of her lips heated and tormented Jacob, rousing a fever so empowering, he could not get enough of her. She had confessed her desire and it slammed into him with the intensity of fire melting metal. He knew well enough where it would end and the raw, primal hunger feeding him smacked with a wall of restraint.

  “You showed benevolence inherent in your nature.”

  He was going to make love to her again, but this time he would feed her fires slowly, to teach her what lovemaking was really meant to be. He slid his tongue across her lips, urging them to part, persisting, and the instant they did, he dove into her mouth. Impatiently, he slipped his hands up and down her arms, her breasts, sliding possessively across her spine and pressing her tightly to his hardened thighs. With a moan of surrender, she wound her arms around his neck, stroking his skin there, and a violent hunger struck him. He struggled to squash that need down. His hands froze on her hips. Reluctantly, he dragged his mouth from hers. “Are you sure?” he asked quietly.

  She exhaled. “Yes.”

  “I promise you this time will so much better.” He took her mouth again and delved his tongue into the deeper recesses of her mouth. His hands trembled undoing her buttons, the rich silk, gliding to the floor. Clad in her chemise, he could not envision anything more erotic. He removed the lacy camisole off her ivory shoulders and full, rosy-tipped breasts gleamed in the candlelight.

  “Now take the pins from your hair,” he commanded. She did and shook her hair free. Thorne groaned. “You tempt a man to his soul.” He could barely breathe, and felt her body quiver from his stare.

  With a look of uncertainty, she did something he did not expect. She undid the buttons of his shirt then pressed her palms against his bare chest, stood on her toes and kissed him.

  Shocked and aroused by her boldness, Thorne willed himself to remain motionless yet blood surged through his veins like quicksilver. Her mouth explored him, her lips hot against his, her sweet tongue, stroking him, fanning fires in his loins. She pulled his shirt off, slowly down his arms then tentatively reached for the laces on his breeches now painfully swollen with his erection. Thorne threw back his head. Her sweet uncertain touch would be his undoing.

  “Not now,” he warned, pulling her hands away and glimpsed the hurt in her eyes. “You’d scorch me with your touch. I need to keep my promise to you.” He tossed back the covers and on a surge of pure lust, he took her dewy lips in a long, sweet kiss, and then swept her up into his arms, laying her gently on the cool soft sheets of his bed.

  She bit her lip, her head turned away, and Thorne saw the lovely flush that swept up her shapely legs, her slender curves, staining the glowing ivory skin across her breasts. Despite her embarrassment, he could not extinguish the candles no more than he could banish this glorious sight. He removed his boots and breeches, then stretched out alongside her, pulling her into his arms and turning her face to him. Abby became rigid. Thorne cursed himself.

  He ran a forefinger over her lovely cheek. “Again, I apologize for my brutish behavior. What is about to take place is between a man and a woman, a sharing of intimacy born of my desire for you, a need to be close to you, to beco
me a part of you.”

  Abby mutely nodded her head.

  “And it will not end here, Abby. When we get to Boston, we will be married.”

  Thorne inhaled. He had told her they would marry and as odd as the oath fell from his lips, it set easily in his mind. He was just as surprised as she. They would marry and he’d do his damnedest to make her happy. She was his.

  Abby pressed a finger to his lips and shook her head. “But I-I cannot...”

  “…Burden me? Is that what you think, Abby. You are a burden? Only once in a million lifetimes, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. Someone you can tell things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and want to hear more. Someone you share hopes for the future, dreams and any disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell her about it, knowing she will share in your excitement. She makes you laugh. She builds you up and shows you things about yourself that make you better. Most importantly, she weaves faith and confidence around your heart. All these qualities I find in you. I want you, Abby. I will protect you and cherish you until the end of my days. I will give you a dozen children and we will raise them together in bliss. You are mine, Abigail Marie Hansford and always will be.”

  He ran his hand soothingly over her naked back, touching briefly her thighs. In the next few moments her breathing quickened, and he seized her sweet mouth in a kiss. He bent his head down and suckled her breast. He let her nipple slide out of his mouth. She pushed him back, but he was more riveted in running his gaze over the sheen of dampness on her breast, dampness he had caused. A surge of possessiveness seized inside his chest. Yes, she was definitely his.