The Devil's Luck (The Skull & Crossbone Romances Book 1)

by Eris Adderly

  He leaned in to her then, a very satisfied glint in his eyes at the delivery of his little speech, and brought his mouth over hers in a demanding kiss.

  Too many sensations and emotions collided in Hannah at once, their opposing forces pulling her into a stunned inaction. She was furious and terrified and—most horrible of all—caught up in an embrace the likes of which she had never experienced.

  His lips on hers were hot and bruising, his tongue pushing its way into her mouth without permission. In her shock, she failed to resist his invasion and received for her negligence prompt mortification at the heat springing to life again in her cheeks and worse yet, between her legs.

  A soft moan escaped from her mouth into his as he moulded his body against every curve and swell of hers. From behind her, though, she felt anew the unmistakable throb of a man in need from Mr Till, and this jolted her rational mind back into working order.

  What was happening to her? She could not allow this to continue a single moment longer and maintain any sense of respectability whatsoever.

  Do something, you foolish woman.

  Hannah bit Captain Blackburn. Hard.

  He growled a curse and jerked away from her, providing the first relief she’d had from the press of his body in what seemed like hours. His fingers came to his injured lip and he pulled them back to find she’d drawn blood.

  “I’m not some whore, to use as you wish, Captain,” she spat. He couldn’t possibly expect her to stand still while he cornered her and took whatever he wanted.

  The fury boiling in her at this latest affront began to turn to apprehension, though, as she watched the wrath slide into his eyes. He brought his attention back to her from the smudge of crimson at his fingertips, and she knew from the tension she saw tightening his features that she’d made a grave mistake.

  “You may be no whore, Mrs Collingwood”—his voice was quiet now, and a dangerous current of threat hummed through it—“but this is my ship, and you’ll soon find that I do, in fact, use anyone on it just as I wish.”

  The captain turned back to the table where he’d laid his weapons and Till shored up his grip on her. Hannah bit her tongue, trying to force herself to be silent and not provoke him any further.

  When the captain faced her again, he had the dagger he’d discarded earlier in hand and was examining its curved blade with a dreadful nonchalance. She had no idea what he intended now, but with a sickening clarity, she knew it would not be in the least to her liking.

  Blackburn approached her, the dull gleam of the weapon promising terrible things to come. The silent alarm clanging within Hannah rang out at last.

  “NO!”

  She shrieked, lashing out with renewed vigour in every way she could manage, determined somehow to alter her situation before the captain closed the gap between them. She kicked and stamped her feet against the knees and shins of Mr Till. Her hands were wild, clawing at his thighs, hoping to gouge or tear at him with her nails.

  Hannah threw her whole body into her frantic surge to break loose from the grip of the man who held her. She bucked and squirmed and thrashed about, making rabid noises of effort and defiance. Till remained unperturbed and only circled the arm over her collarbone tighter, his muscles coiling about her like a python gripping a prey animal. The fingers of his other hand around her arm were solid as stone and he hauled backwards so hard on her trapped limb that she worried it would come out of its socket.

  “Be still, Mrs Collingwood,” he said, his tone soft and unsettling against her ear. “You’ll only make it worse for yourself.”

  What struck her was the note of genuine concern in his quiet words, so incongruous with the scene of coercion playing out below the decks of The Devil’s Luck. Something about his voice stilled her. Hannah did not know what would come next, but some unexpected bit of reassurance in his tone made her believe the large man at her back. It took all of her effort, but she schooled her body into a tight semblance of calm and steeled herself for Captain Blackburn and his dagger.

  He’d returned to stand in front of her again, but not so close as before. Placing the flat of the blade against her breastbone, just above the neckline of her dress, he addressed her in the calm, measured voice of authority.

  “Mrs Collingwood,” he said, his eyes on the tops of her breasts as they expanded and contracted with her breath, pushed high as they were by her stays, “the agenda of this vessel may not be the most lawful one, to be sure, but discipline is something I do not let lapse. If I allow insubordination on my ship, even the smallest, I’ll soon have a crew that will not obey orders, and cannot function as an efficient whole.

  “You are a part of this ship now, whether either of us prefers it or no, and this places you under my authority. Well”—his eyes flicked up to Till—“mine and the quartermaster’s. I assure you that biting,” he said, as he licked his damaged lip again to see if it still bled, “does not fall within the limits of acceptable behaviour.”

  He turned the dagger on its side now, so that the edge of the blade, and not merely the flat, rested between her breasts.

  “I’ll not make an exception to punishment,” he continued, “simply because of your fair sex. I will use you as I wish, my fine Lady, and I should hope, once you’ve borne the discipline you’ve earned, that you will make this fact fast in your mind. There is only so much … correction … a body can bear.”

  Hannah’s eyes were wide with fright. The thought that he intended to enact some sort of punishment on her. And that dagger …

  The captain withdrew the weapon from her skin and pinched the neckline of her gown between his fingers, pulling it as far away from her body as the give of the fabric would allow. He brought the dagger to the top edge of the cloth and began to saw across it with short, controlled passes of the blade.

  She watched in horror as he brought the relentless blade down through all the layers of her clothing: silk gown, laces, stays, even her shift. His careful slices split the garments in two and her mortification threatened to swallow her whole as her pale breasts were freed of their trappings to bounce into their natural place for his perusal.

  He didn’t pause to fondle her, though, and kept at his work, moving the blade to her waist. Hannah cursed herself in silence for the first time ever at her preference to eschew the bulky, stiff-hooped petticoats so fashionable among her peers. She hated trying to move and sit wearing one of those frivolous things, but at least the hoops might have slowed him down for a few moments longer.

  Once the captain made it past the tough bindings of her stays, the rest of the path from the waist of her skirts to her hemline gave little resistance under the edge of his blade. Her clothing parted in half for Edmund Blackburn and he did not even bother to stop and appreciate her shameful nudity. Even still, her cheeks burned with colour at her inability to hide herself from him, and likely from Till as well, if he cared to lean his head down and look over her shoulder.

  The man at her back, immovable object though he was, with his muscular arm across the front of her shoulders, had begun stroking his thumb over her collarbone in what she imagined he thought of as a soothing gesture. Perhaps he hoped the placating gesture would serve to calm her and prevent her jerking about and spilling her own blood on the captain’s blade. There was no need for that: she, too, wished to keep her skin intact.

  Black Edmund was fully in the role of Captain now, bent on carrying out whatever acts of “discipline” he had in mind, the lust in his touch from earlier cooled away by the business at hand. Till continued to hold Hannah in place while the captain sank to a crouch in front of her, divesting her without ceremony of first one silk slipper and then the other. He shucked off her stockings one by one and piled them atop her shoes, pushing the lot aside before rising to stand.

  His eyes met hers again, and though she knew he was deadly serious, she thought she saw a glimmer of some of his prior carnality there. Without touching any of the flesh he’d just exposed with his blade, he reached beh
ind her neck with his free hand and burrowed his fingers into her hair, making a fist to secure a strong hold at the back of her head.

  “Mr Till,” he said, taking one step backward and pulling her the distance with him by his fingers tangled in her hair. His man seemed to know what it was Blackburn wanted because he released her at last from his iron grip. Thick fingers hooked over the shoulders of her ruined gown from behind, and with a series of short tugs to pull her arms out of her sleeves, he stripped her of the husk of her garment.

  Now she was bare on both sides to the wandering eyes of two strange men. Two pirates. The word itself made her breath hitch in her throat. Hannah had never exposed herself this way in her life, and certainly not to men such as these. Even in front of her husband she’d kept her shift on to retain some level of decency. Hannah began to tremble.

  “Fetch us some line, Mr Till,” he said. “We’re going to teach Mrs Collingwood what it means to be still.”

  She let out a startled cry as the captain used his grip on her hair to pull her around in front of him and then push her toward the doors to the stateroom.

  He unlatched the door and shoved her through, moving back into the dimly lit council chamber they’d passed through earlier. Mr Till swept around from behind them, brisk steps taking him away to find the requested line. As the captain hustled her forward toward the stairs at the far side of the room, Hannah realised where he was taking her and panicked anew.

  “Captain, no!”

  Her hands flew to his wrist at the back of her head and she tore at him, frantic. He could not take her out onto the upper deck like this! She would expire on the spot from the humiliation. The crew. All those men, those pirates … There was no chivalry or law to save her here.

  With a yank of the hand embedded in her hair, the captain pulled her body back against his chest. She flushed again at the feel of his coat and shirt and breeches against her naked skin. The threatening line of the edge of his dagger came against her throat and she stiffened, her movements stilled in an instant.

  “Now Hannah,” he said, using her first name in an intimate breech of propriety designed, she suspected, to further her sense of violation, “you can accept your discipline like a lady, or I can have you put over the side. One of those two alternatives you’ll manage to live through. I’m sure you can imagine which.”

  She tried to wrestle at that moment with which fate would be worse: a cold, watery death by drowning, or the other unknowable choice, which would involve a ship full of sailors leering at her nudity at the very least, and at the worst … she could not even imagine.

  “I’m waiting. Mrs Collingwood.” He went back to a formal address. “Which will it be? Will you stay on board? Out of the water?”

  Will shame kill you, Hannah? If you survive this day, there may be a chance.

  Hannah made her fateful choice and gave a tight nod, trying to disturb the blade at her throat as little as possible. Her vision blurred with tears.

  “Then let us proceed.” He withdrew the sharp edge of the dagger and pushed her again toward the steps.

  Mr Till had already passed out of the room to the deck above, leaving the door open behind him, a window of light to mark the transition between a relative semblance of privacy and the stark openness of public shame.

  The captain prodded her up the stairs now, her gait stiff and almost pushing back against his guiding arm as if that would somehow reverse their progress onto the deck. She realised now that baring herself to him and just one of his crew in the stateroom, nerve-wracking though it had been, would have been far preferable to the display she was about to become. It was too late now, however.

  The light of day was painfully bright and Hannah blinked and squinted into it as her eyes adjusted upon emerging from below deck. They were well out to sea now, and the low clouds that blanketed the port had burned off, leaving uninterrupted sky in every direction.

  She had no time to stand and gawk at the blue infinity surrounding her, though, because the captain was dragging her with a purpose now down the length of the deck. Hannah stumbled along, propelled by his grip in her hair, her hands at his forearm trying to lessen the pain of his hold on her scalp. The bold blue depths of the sea and sky seemed unreal, and she hoped against all reason that they were. That this was a dream and she would awaken from this horror to find herself still abed at the inn.

  The first whistle drove through her thoughts like a spike hammered into a crucifix.

  Members of the crew, she became aware, were stopping in the middle of their current tasks to turn and stare with predatory interest at the naked woman being hustled along the deck. Hannah’s eyes darted from face to leering face, their rough hoots and jeers answering each other like the cawing of crows in an execution yard.

  “Ho! Captain has a new pet, men! I bet she …”

  “… would do to that arse …”

  “… right in that pretty mouth!”

  Captain Blackburn seemed intent on dragging her along the entire length of the ship, and he ignored the lecherous taunts of his men as he moved toward whatever cruel design he had in mind. Hannah could hear nothing else.

  “… see if she likes a bit of the …”

  “… hoist those legs up over …”

  “… get her hands on my …”

  Their gibes still swirled around her like filthy water as the captain came to a halt in front of a waiting Mr Till. She saw that he’d hauled her fair distance from where they’d emerged, and they stood now at the foremast, at the opposite end from the aft door that led down to the council room.

  He pinned her to the mast with a rough shove and held out his free hand to receive the end of a length of rope coiled over the arm of Mr Till. At last, his fingers left her hair, but only so he could place a firm palm against her chest, holding her in place while he made quick work of securing her to the pillar of timber.

  He wound the line around her and the mast with deft movements and Till’s help, and soon a restraining band looped several times around just below her shoulders but above her breasts. Another series of coils followed at her hips, trapping her wrists to her sides, and he completed his work with a circling of lines at her ankles.

  The finality of the act struck Hannah like a blow. There seemed to be no waking from this nightmare, where the pirates lashed the widowed daughter of a respected politician naked to the foremast of a ship full of wretched, leering men whose disgusting words spoke of horrors to come.

  “Men!” the captain said, his voice ringing out over the deck, his hands at his hips, “Mrs Collingwood here is our guest for this next leg of our route. Let’s do our best to welcome her aboard The Devil’s Luck.”

  This brought a roar of further cries and foul taunts from the crew, but they died down again as Blackburn continued.

  “That being said, let me be clear: this pretty bird is not part of a take, to be divided into equal shares. Feast your eyes as you will, mates, but your hands will be to yourselves. Do not let me hear anyone has been at play, men, or you’ll find yourself wishing you hadn’t.”

  When the crew continued to stand and gawk at the naked female in their midst, their quartermaster barked at them: “Everyone back to work!”

  Men turned back to their tasks, if with some reluctance, at the sound of his command.

  Tears burned in her eyes at this smallest measure of relief he’d offered. At least the captain had prohibited any of them from physically molesting her. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to retain any thread of sanity if that were allowed. Hannah hoped the same immunity would be afforded to her maid, wherever the poor woman found herself now.

  He turned back to her then, a brisk nod approving his own handiwork. “Five hours, Mr Till.” He set the time for her punishment and she blanched. “And see to it they abide by my words. No one touches her. I should hope, for your sake, Mrs Collingwood, that once I set you loose from that mast you’ll have a better understanding of what it means to stand still for me when I
require it.”

  She swallowed at his words, wondering how she could manage to endure this treatment. Testing her bonds with an attempted wriggle and flex of her limbs, she saw that there would be no choice but to wait it out.

  “Captain,” she managed to choke out, “what will become of Brigit? Of my maid?” She had to hope that the woman was faring better than she was.

  He turned back to her at the question, his expression indicating he was very pleased with himself. “Oh worry not, Madam. I’ve no interest in the likes of her; not when I’ve already uncovered a greater prize.” His eyes caressed her flesh as he continued. “No, I’m certain she’ll be of some use in the employ of our cook—from what I saw, she looks suited to such labour. Concern yourself instead, Mrs Collingwood, with what will become of you.”

  With that vague threat put in place, Edmund Blackburn moved on to his next matter of business.

  “Graves!” The captain turned from her with a hand to his eyes to reduce the glare from the sun as he called for the surgeon.

  Hannah followed his line of sight to the lanky man oozing along the deck toward them. She could tell from the wary way he approached he was expecting Blackburn’s ire.

  “Captain.” The man should have been cowed, but he regarded Blackburn the way a snake might regard some hoofed animal that could crush it. It was best not to forget that the snake could still bite. The surgeon’s beady eyes flickered to her, and for some reason, even more than before, she burned with a desire to cover herself.

  “So, Doctor Graves,” the captain began, “what is your title aboard this vessel?”

  “Surgeon, Sir,” the leathery man said, not withering at all the way one might expect under the deadly calm of the captain’s tone.

  “Oh? It isn’t ‘Captain’?” Blackburn asked in feigned surprise.

  “No, Sir.”

  “And how is it, then, that you decided, all on your own, to bring a woman—no, two women—aboard my ship? Mr Till”—he turned to the man still standing behind her—“do you recall my giving permission for Doctor Graves to pick out a bit of lace from the port to carry along on this journey?”