by Kruger, Mary
They sat at opposite ends of the table, Rebecca and the pirate, she picking at her food, he continuing to write, and yet very aware of her, so near; so silent, and yet so disapproving. Aye, and he supposed she had a point, he thought, forcing himself to concentrate on the numbers on the slate so that he could figure out the ship’s position with some accuracy. He didn’t need a shrew of a woman to distract him, or to make him feel unwelcome remorse for his behavior. Of course he wouldn’t punish Tyner; he wouldn’t have to. Tyner was shrewd enough not to make the same mistake twice. He’d not allow himself to be distracted by Rebecca again. Unfortunately, Brendan thought, he couldn’t say the same. “Bah,” he said, and threw down the slate pencil.
Rebecca looked up, startled. “What is it?”
He eyed her for a moment, seeing her cheeks still flushed and her hair tousled, as if she’d just arisen from bed. A surge of heat went through him. Devil take it! “Eat your dinner,” he ordered curtly, and returned his attention to the far less interesting, but far safer, calculations.
Tyner came in with Brendan’s meal, which he ate distractedly, still working. Rebecca finished her dinner at last and stacked both plates together for Tyner to remove. Brendan ignored her. Frowning, not knowing why she was so annoyed, she drifted over to the cabinet that held his books, bracing herself with one hand against the wall as the ship rolled. All those lovely books, and, behind the locked door, as unattainable here as at home. Father didn’t approve of secular reading; his meager library contained various political treatises, several volumes of sermons, and, of course, the Bible. His daughters’ reading was similarly constrained. Wistfully she took in the titles: The New American Practical Navigator, a complete book of Shakespeare’s works, the poetry of John Donne, Knickerbocker’s History of New York. Why would a pirate read such books? Even more surprising was what was next to the volumes. “A chess set,” she said, surprised.
“D’ye play, lass?” Brendan said from behind her.
Tears unexpectedly surged into her throat. “Yes, I—once I used to play with my father. But it’s been years.” Many years ago, when she had been more to him than just a chaperon for Amelia. When her father had loved her.
“Fancy a game, d’ye?”
She turned. He was leaning back in his chair, hands linked behind his head, grinning at her for all the world as if earlier he had not been in a temper. “Not particularly, no,” she said, reluctantly. She loved chess, but to play a game with him would be like playing with the devil himself.
“I didn’t take ye for a coward, lass.”
“I’m not a coward!”
“No?”
“No.” She closed her mouth firmly. She would not allow him to goad her. She would not.
“Is it that you fear you’ll lose, then?”
“I wouldn’t lose.”
He laughed, throwing back his head and displaying again his strong, even white teeth. “Such confidence, leannan.”
“Pray don’t call me that.”
“What d’ye say we play a game? For stakes?”
“A wager?”
“Aye.” There was a devilish twinkle in his eye. “Don’t tell me it’s never crossed your mind.”
“Never.”
“Liar,” he said, without heat. “I know ye, lass. Ye aren’t as innocent as ye’d have me think.”
Rebecca froze. What did he know? What could he know? “Wagering is wrong.”
“Even if the wager is—” He leaned back, toying with the slate pencil. “Ah, let’s say, a visit to your sister?”
“Oh, would you?” she burst out.
“Aye, but only if ye win, lass. While if I win—”
“What?” she said, distrusting the twinkle in his eye.
“Why, lass, ye’ll have to give me a kiss.”
Rebecca stared at him for a long moment. Then, unable to help herself any longer, she let out a laugh. “Now if that isn’t just what I should have expected!”
“Aye, lass. After all, I am a pirate,” he said, though his eye still held the surprised look that had flashed into it at her laugh.
“Oh, yes.” She turned, her back to the bookcase. “Of course, a kiss is something you could have had this age.”
“Nay, lass. Not the kind of kiss I’m thinkin’ of.” His voice was soft, liquid. “All warm and wet and willing—that kind of kiss, lass.”
“No,” she stated, appalled at the surge of heat his words evoked within her.
“Aye, and ye’d enjoy it as much as I.”
“I never would!” She turned her back. “I will not play chess with you. Not for any reason.”
“What is one kiss, leannan, when ye’ve offered me so much more?”
She kept her back to him, her shoulders rigid. “There was a reason for that.”
“Aye, and there’s a reason for this, too, if ye win.” He paused. “Unless ye fear ye’d lose.”
She looked at him over her shoulder. He was grinning at her, cocksure and confident, and that, more than anything else, decided her. “No. I would not lose.”
His grin broadened, dazzling her. “Then get the chess set down, lass, and prove it.”
Involuntarily her fingers went to the pull on the cabinet door, and then stopped. “Isn’t it locked?”
“No. Ye can read any book ye wish,” he went on as she opened the cabinet, “including the Donne. If ye’ve a mind.”
“No, thank you,” she said, frostily, bringing the chess set over to the table where he already sat. “And is this more pirate’s plunder?”
“Aye, what else?” he said, carelessly returning the pieces to their proper positions from the problem he had set up. The set was small, the entire board no larger across than the length of her forearm, and each square had an indentation for the base of the chess pieces. The pieces themselves were the traditional black and white: rare ebony, fine ivory. Plunder, indeed, she thought, and then quickly frowned at the thought of a pirate, not only playing chess, but setting up chess problems. “And where does a pirate learn to play chess?” she asked, sitting down across from him.
“From his captives, of course. Ye may have the white, lass.” His teeth gleamed in a smile. “I prefer black.”
“So I noticed,” she said, dryly, and advanced a pawn two squares out onto the board. Battle was joined.
Brendan studied the board for a moment and then, grinning, countered by moving a pawn of his own. “There. Not a fancy beginning, but a beginning, all the same.”
Rebecca quickly glanced up at him through her lashes. So. He thought she couldn’t play? True it was that she hadn’t played in many a year, but chess was a favorite game of hers, and her father a pitiless opponent. As long as Brendan was unaware of that, however, she held the advantage. She was not going to give him his kiss, no, not the way he’d said! Warm and willing and wet, as if she were some kind of wanton.
Biting her lips, frowning, she reached out to a pawn, retreated, reached out again, and settled, finally, on the bishop. “Bishop to king’s bishop four,” she murmured, forgetting her opponent for the moment.
“Are ye sure ye want to do that, lass?” Brendan said, and she looked up, still biting her lips. He was smiling still, but in his eyes was a look she distrusted, the look of a hunter after prey.
“I—I think so,” she said, and sat back, as if uncertain, when in reality she had put out the bishop to protect her queen. And to draw him in.
He clicked his teeth, as if in concern. Out came a black pawn, and what his intentions were, she could not guess. She needed only to remember that chess was a game of tactics, and he was a master tactician, as shown by his many captures.
Again, seemingly hesitant, she reached out her hand, and this time it was the queen she brought out, though not very far. Brendan said nothing, only looked at it with narrowed eye. She tried to keep her own face guileless, wondering if he’d see what was so clear to her: that by moving his pawns he’d cleared a space in front of his king, and thus a direct path for her que
en. Hardly daring to breathe, she watched as his hand came out, hovered over a pawn, and then settled firmly on the knight, moving it out into the center. “There, now, lass, more moves like that and I’ll control the middle.”
“I don’t think so,” Rebecca said, almost gently, and moved her queen across the board to the space diagonal to his king. “Checkmate.”
“What?” He stared blankly at the board. There was no doubt about it. The black king was blocked from any movement by the white queen. Rebecca had won. “I will be damned. The Fool’s Game,” he said, and she could no longer contain herself. She let out a laugh, full and rich. “I will be damned,” he said again, and this time she caught the change in his inflection, the lack of poetry in his voice as, using her queen, he knocked his king over in the traditional gesture of defeat. Was it just because he’d lost? “Ye play well, lass.”
“For a woman?” she said, and laughed again, relieved. If he were angry, he wasn’t going to take it out on her. “Has no one beaten you lately, captain?”
“No. Not at sea, or at chess, or,” his gaze fastened with disconcerting intentness on her lips, “at love.”
She was suddenly serious, aware of the tension so strong between them again. “I believe I won the wager, sir.”
“Indeed, you did. Unless you care to make it best two out of three?”
Rebecca hesitated. She had won. She would be allowed to visit her sister. Something in his eye tempted her, though. “Oh, why not,” she said, recklessly. “Let’s set them up again. But, whatever happens, I may visit my sister.”
“Then we play for a kiss only,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.
“Very well.” Her head was high; her eyes sparkled in a way he’d never seen before, with life and laughter and fire. Aye, he’d be burned if he played at this game much longer. “I warn you, however. You shan’t get it.”
“That remains to be seen, lass,” he said almost absently, studying the board and planning out his strategy. So she wished to join in battle with him? So be it.
The second game was a very different affair from the first. And an affair it was, Brendan realized very early on, though he suspected Rebecca didn’t. The goal of chess might be to capture the king, but this was about wooing the queen. Wherever Rebecca moved, he moved too; where she went he followed. When he took one of her pieces, he touched it caressingly; if her queen came out onto the board, he was certain to be there. For she was the queen, the most powerful piece on the board, and while he wouldn’t consign himself to the fate of being king, who must be protected, he was at the least a match for her. And not just in chess. If there were fire here, if he were to burn, then so be it. Watching her intent face, her brow wrinkled, her eyes serious and her lower lip caught in her teeth, he would, he knew, welcome it.
Her queen, and not so incidentally her king as well, was soon surrounded by a fawning, admiring crowd of pawns and knights and bishops. Her frown briefly deepened, and then, with a little laugh, she knocked her king over. “You have me,” she admitted.
“Have I, lass?”
At his words, she looked up, startled, and her breath drew in. “No, I—I mean you’ve won this game. You play very well, captain.” She busied herself with setting up the pieces.
“Aye. For a pirate.” Seduction was over for the moment. There was the matter of a wager between them, to be settled by the next game.
“Why do you say that?” she asked, and he looked up to see her watching him, a puzzled frown crinkling her brow.
“Because it is what I am, lass. I believe I take white this time.”
“Yes. Yes, you are, but—.”
Danger. He looked up from adjusting the board. “But?”
“I don’t know.” Her hand waved in the air, helplessly. “You’re not what I’d ever thought a pirate would be.”
Definite danger. He didn’t know what she was thinking, what she had seen to say such a thing. Whatever it was, he needed to disabuse her of the notion, and quickly. “I captured your ship.” He moved out a pawn. “I believe that qualifies me as a pirate.”
“Yes, but—.”
“But?” he said again, alert, tense. He’d left her alone in this cabin. Devil take it, what had she seen?
“But you haven’t taken advantage of me.”
Relief made him almost light-headed, made him want to pick her up and twirl her around. Made him wish that he had, indeed, taken advantage of her offer. “Know this, Rebecca,” he said, leaning over the table, his head close to hers. “When this game is over I will kiss you. And it will not be taking advantage.”
“You need to win first.”
“I will.”
He’d answered with such certainty that he expected her to look frightened or, at the least, apprehensive. Instead, she merely looked thoughtful. “We shall see,” she said, and moved a pawn out as well. “Where did you learn to play chess?”
“At home,” he said absently, totally concentrated on the game now, his mind working ahead, running over her possible moves and his strategy. “Long ago.”
“And where is home?”
Danger, his instincts screamed again, and he looked up to face an entirely different kind of danger: her eyes, large and luminous and, unbelievably, interested. In him. Not in the Raven, the pirate, but in him alone. “‘Tis a long time ago, lass,” he said, returning his attention to the board and startled to find he’d moved a rook out. Now why had he done that?
“Ireland, I suppose.”
“Aye.” Now what was she doing, moving her knight out like that? Frowning, he looked up and again encountered her eyes. Danger! “Where, ah, how did you learn?”
“Oh, my father taught me.” She sat back and then, almost nonchalantly, made her move. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out what her strategy was. One thing he had learned, though, and that was not to underestimate her.
“Ye are close to your father?”
“I was.” Her voice lost all animation. “I mean yes, of course, I am.”
“But he sent ye away.” He concentrated on her, the game forgotten for the moment. “Why did he do that?”
“Oh, Amelia needed a companion, of course,” she said, breezily, but he wasn’t fooled. For the first time her hand had faltered as she reached out to make a move.
“He sent you away,” he repeated, flatly.
“No.” She sat back, studying the board. “There’s nothing left for me in Georgetown.” Her face was impassive, but he thought he saw pain in her eyes for just the briefest moment.
“No one, leannan? No admirers? No suitors?”
“For me? Heavens, no! Your move.”
“Then the men must all be fools.”
“I am old, plain, and on the shelf.” She frowned. “Are you certain you want to do that?”
“Yes,” he said, moving out his queen and annoyed at the question. This wasn’t about chess, any more than the previous games had been. “Surely ye know you’re beautiful, leannan?”
“Beautiful? Me?” Her eyes were astonished, and spite of himself he was caught by their spell. Caught, and lost.
“Yes, lass,” he heard himself say. “You.”
“But—” As if seeking refuge she looked down at the board, and he knew in a flash of understanding what her strategy was. It had nothing to do with chess. It did have everything to do with distracting him. He wanted to laugh and yell at the same time. She might use her wiles on him, yet she didn’t believe him. He found her beautiful. And when that had happened, he didn’t know.
“I’m not, you know.” Her voice was prosaic.
“We’ll not argue this, lass.” His anger was gone, replaced by amusement and desire. “There’s a game to be played.”
Rebecca didn’t meet his gaze. “So there is.”
The earlier camaraderie of the game was gone. There were no more questions probing his past, no more huge green eyes fluttering up at him—somewhere along the way she had learned to flirt, deny it though she might now—nothing but ut
ter concentration. There was only the game, and the realization of what winning, and losing, meant. She was good, he’d grant her that, he thought, moving up his knight to a diagonal to her king, a trap she hadn’t seen. Very good, but no match for his determination. “Checkmate,” he said, quietly, and her hand, which had been raised to move a piece, suddenly dropped. “I believe you owe me a kiss.”
She looked up, and he could read nothing in her eyes, not sorrow or fear or even anger. There was only resignation in her sigh, in the set of her shoulders. “I believe I do,” she said, not moving.
He rose, stepped away from the table. “Come here, Rebecca,” he ordered. She bit her lips, and then rose, walking to him, her head bent. “Look at me, lass.” He put his fingers under her chin, forcing her head up. “Look at me.” Still nothing in her eyes, except perhaps the slightest flicker of apprehension. “Ye’ve been kissed before, haven’t ye?”
She licked her lips, and he wondered if she realized how incredibly enticing a gesture it was. “Yes.”
“I thought as much.” He ignored the way her gaze swept up to him as he slid his arm about her waist, drawing her to him. Under his hand her waist was trim, firm, and curved exactly as it should be; against his chest he could feel her breasts, fuller than he’d expected. The heat that he’d been holding at bay all afternoon surged within him. The devil take it, she was a beauty. Why did she hide behind shapeless dresses and severe hairstyling? “Put your arms around my neck, lass.” He braced himself as she obeyed, her breasts moving against him, forcing himself not to clutch at her, to pull her closer. For he wanted what he had said to her earlier. He wanted her all warm and wet and willing. “Are ye frightened, lass?”
“Of a kiss? No.”
“Mayhaps ye should be.” Gazing down at her face, he allowed his fingers to slip along her chin, tracing the outline of her lips slightly, lightly, with the tip of a finger. Her breath caught; her lips parted, and it was suddenly too much for him. “Ah, leannan, don’t you know you were made for this?” he said, and his lips swooped down upon hers.