by Paula Quinn
“Like mercenaries.”
“Aye.” He nodded and smiled at her. “I’m guessin’ the purpose of these men was to find me and follow me to me father’s treasure. The governors and investors in Boston and New York want the Quedagh Merchant. They hanged me father fer it.”
“But how do they already know ye have the map?” Kyle put to him. “We havena’ stopped anywhere. These privateers must have been following ye before Scotland.”
Alex nodded. “They don’t know about the map. They’ve been followin’ me fer seven years on and off, believin’ me father told me where the ship was before they killed him. But they’ve never tried a ruse like this before. If not fer ya,” he told Kyle, “we would likely be dead right now. How did ya know ’twas a trap?”
She liked that although he did most of the killing and then saved her life, he thanked Kyle for saving them.
“They were counting moments until they could fight,” Kyle told him. “I could see it in their eyes. I suspected something but when one of them lifted his hand to scratch his head, I spotted his pistol in his belt, an English flintlock. A man who carries a pistol usually uses it. Why hadn’t he?”
Alex shrugged.
“Because he was waiting fer his orders.”
The captain grinned at him and tossed his arm over the back of his chair. “Ya figured all that out just by lookin’ at them?”
“Not looking,” Kyle corrected. “Watching. And if ye dinna’ mind, I would like to be present while Mr. Pierce questions the prisoners.”
“We don’t usually take prisoners, MacGregor. Particularly not sneaky ones.”
“With respect, Captain”—her cousin’s tone proved his sentiment true—“prisoners should always be questioned.”
Alex nodded. “Go. Interrogate, but ya’ll find that here at sea, a man will sell his soul for a scrap of gold, nothing else.”
Kyle stood up and thanked him, then kissed the top of Trina’s head and left the cabin.
The quarters suddenly felt small and stifling with just her and the captain in it. Trina refused his offer of ale. She already felt muddleheaded. She didn’t need help getting there. She looked around to avoid looking at him. Her eyes settled on the bed. How long was their journey? How long would he keep away from his bed?
“Captain, ye must find a room fer me to sleep in that is safe and away from ye.”
“We’re alone.” He pointed out the torturously obvious. “Call me Alex and tell me why ya want to be away from me in particular.”
“Ye know perfectly well why, Captain. ’Tis only a matter of time before ye can no longer control yer hungry appetite.”
And I willingly succumb.
He raised his brows and smiled. “Me hungry appetite?”
“Aye,” she said. She refused to think about all the ways he could devour her. She would not allow the memory of his kiss to addle her good senses. She could have had plenty of men. Many had offered. She’d refused them all, seeking freedom to discover what she truly wanted in life and needing clarity of thought not to let anything stop her.
“And what will happen when I can no longer control meself?”
She sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward. She didn’t want to play this game of coy blushes and feigned propriety. If they were going to sail the seas together, he needed to know that she wouldn’t lie to him or pretend to be someone she wasn’t. “Ye will have yer way with me. Force me to lie with ye and…” She paused and swallowed, sorry for opening her mouth when images, perverse and scintillating, overwhelmed her. Images of him pushing her down onto his bed, his hard, lithe body poised over hers…
“And?” he asked on a sorcerer’s whisper.
As if the sight of him sitting there spread out over his chair like a lazy prince wasn’t bad enough, visions of him fighting and flying toward her on a rope to rescue her invaded her thoughts and formed knots in her belly. And? he’d asked. And, she wanted to tell him, kiss every inch of his body.
She blinked at him. His smile deepened as if he were reading the thoughts that made her blush. She severed their gaze and rose to her feet. He followed.
“Caitrina.” The sound of her name on his lips drew her to look at him. “I’m havin’ fun with ya. I would never force meself on any woman, not even one as exquisite and entertainin’ as ya.”
Did he mock her? She couldn’t tell. Och, why the hell did Kyle leave? He would know.
“But,” he continued, his sable eyes growing even darker beneath his brows while wicked intentions passed through his thoughts, “ya’re correct about me hungry appetite, fer I’d love to sample yar delectable fruit and discover if ’tis as sweet as yar mouth.”
She should slap him. Shouldn’t she? She might if she could breathe. Tiny beads of sweat formed on her forehead, her temples, and her upper lip. No man had ever dared speak to her in such a manner, so wickedly, not with her kin around. But they weren’t around now. And she didn’t want to slap him. She wanted to kiss him. Saints, what had come over her?
“But alas, we come from two different worlds,” he was saying. “Ya have nothing to fear from me, Caitrina. I prefer my women less… innocent.”
How did he manage to make her feel like he was denying what she ached for? Bastard. Why did she want to declare that she wasn’t as innocent as he thought? She should have slapped him. Of course she wasn’t innocent. She knew what men and women did in beds. She grew up hearing tales about sexual pursuits and satisfying victories from men who mastered the art of seduction. Her brother Malcolm and her cousin Adam never woke with the same woman twice. She knew plenty, but she didn’t have to prove it to Captain Kidd.
She offered him a cheeky smile. “That’s good to know. Now where can I sleep besides yer bed?”
He laughed, looking more intoxicating than a dozen ships all bound for lands unknown.
“I’ll speak to Sam and Mr. Bonnet about finding ya someplace private. Hungry?”
“What?”
“Are ya hungry, Miss Grant?”
For an instant she feared that he’d stripped her of her thoughts and read them. Then she remembered she hadn’t eaten. “Aye. I am.”
“Do ya think ’tis safe to share a meal with me?” he asked on his way to the door. “Or might me hungry appetite take control and ravish ya?” He turned away from her and to the door. Opening it, he called out to someone to have Robbie bring them food, then shut the door again and turned back to her.
“If it does,” she told him, following where they had left off, “let me assure ye, Captain, before ye’re done, ye’ll be dead.”
He grinned, wide and inviting, sincerely amused. “How would ya do it?” he asked, offering her back her seat at the table. “Do ya think I would succumb as quickly as the man ya killed on deck?”
She had the urge to fan herself but she didn’t want to let on that he had any effect on her. He was enjoying this as much as he believed she was. He was right.
“Quickly or not,” she promised, unyielding in her pride, refusing to lose to him, “ye would eventually lose to me.”
He leaned back in his chair and swung one leg over the arm. “I think ya would find me difficult to kill.”
She shrugged her shoulders and offered him a slight, indulgent smile. “Think what ye will.”
He arched his brows at her audacity. If he was trying to intimidate her, he might have succeeded if he wasn’t grinning at her like some sexy halfwit. Och, how she wanted to just go over there and melt on top of him.
“I think I’d like a demonstration of yar skill.”
She shook her head. The last thing she wanted was to get physical with him. “I dinna’ need to defend myself against yer misgivings.”
“Of course. By the confidence in yar voice, I thought ya knew some skill no woman before ya has ever tried on me.”
He knew how to bait her. Thank God for Kyle and his endless, annoying lessons on dodging the hook. “How difficult is it to cut a man’s throat while he sleeps?”
His
eyes took her in like she was a long-awaited sunset, but his words dripped with desire. “The difficulty”—his voice dipped to a low growl—“at least fer ya, would be wonderin’ how ya got into me bed in the first place.”
Her smile remained intact, cool, and distant. Keeping calm was a challenge she enjoyed. “Ye waste yer seductions on me. I willna’ be in yer bed, Captain. But I’ll be in yer cabin if ye dinna’ find me a new bed. And I can kill ye in yer sleep if I’m here.”
She enjoyed the fullness of his smile, the different nuances of it, and that he was confident enough to laugh at her.
“In truth,” she admitted, wanting his help in teaching her never to need it again, “I could use a few lessons in hand-to-hand battle. Mind ye, I’m not suggesting that I dinna’ know how to kill ye—or any other man—if I had to. I just want to be able to take on more than one man at a time.”
“Wise.”
“Will ye help me?”
“Aye.”
She tilted her head at him. “Dinna’ hope these lessons will lead to anything more than learning combat.”
He laughed softly at her. “Ya certainly think highly of yarself, woman. I agree because I might not reach ya in time if ya’re attacked again. I won’t have ya helpless to any number of men.”
“Neither would I.” She smiled more genuinely. She would never forget the sight of him coming for her on a rope. How far away was Portugal? She hoped it was months, years, a lifetime.
Chapter Fourteen
Alex watched the last of the booty being carried from the privateer’s ship to Poseidon’s Adventure. He’d helped haul most of it back over planks connecting both ships while Sam took inventory. They’d collected fourteen barrels of water, five casks of rice, dried fish, live chickens, candles, thread, soap, sugar, spices, some bolts of cloth, kettles, and of course kegs of spirits.
After interrogating the captain of the ship, Kyle discovered that it was Captain Harris of the Excellence who hired the privateers. Alex wasn’t sure what good that knowledge did them but he appreciated Kyle getting it. Alex and Sam decided to let the captain of the merchant ship live, and sent him on his way with a skeleton crew and limited supplies. If they killed every enemy they faced, there would be none for another day and the seas would become a dull place.
Although Alex doubted this journey would be a dull one, what with the beauty Caitrina and her landlubber cousin aboard. He thought about them both while they raised anchor and set sail for Portugal. If not for Kyle, his crew might very well be dead. As much as Alex hated to admit it, he would likely have boarded the ship and been taken by surprise when the privateers attacked. The Highlander’s keen eye and ability to spot trouble could come in quite handy. Not to mention his skill with a sword. He was a tad clumsy, but that was due to the absence of solid ground beneath his feet. Alex was glad to have him aboard. For now. He couldn’t say the same for Caitrina.
Aye, she was a skilled archer. She took down half a dozen men before trouble found her. But still it found her and he didn’t like the way it made him feel. So, she managed to take down the bastard who struck her… and oh, what Alex would have done to him if she hadn’t, but she couldn’t fight four men. He closed his eyes, thinking of what would have happened if he hadn’t made it to her in time. She wasn’t his charge. He had plenty more important things to see to, than seeing to her. Now he had agreed to train her in combat. Blast him.
He turned, sensing her coming near.
Was it her?
What had she done to herself? Who gave her those clothes?
“How do I look?” she asked, reaching him and twirling in place.
His eyes devoured her in her canvas pants, cinched at the waist with a rose-colored sash. She wore a loose-fitting shirt, like his, but with more tantalizing curves. Her luminous dark tresses were secured beneath another sash of pale coral.
He thought his heart might have stopped a little at the sight of her. It would explain the sudden wave of lightheadedness that usually only came upon him after several tankards of rum. Never when looking at a woman. He didn’t know whether to smile at her or scowl at the way she so easily addled his soundness of mind.
He should have bypassed the merchant/privateer ship, dumped her in France, and moved the hell on, eager as he was to find his treasure.
He’d never cared much if he was rich or not. He enjoyed his life and the women in it. It wasn’t that he couldn’t give his heart to one. He had given it, long ago. It took him a long time to get it back. He wouldn’t lose it again. He’d never considered giving up pirating and living somewhere on land with a wife and children. Not even with Madalena. Pirating flowed in his veins. The sea was his home, his crew was part of his family. He never thought to leave it.
And then he met her.
A fearless Highland lass who knew what she wanted and went after it.
“Ya look… ehm…” his voice faltered an instant when a soft blush stole across her cheeks. She was confident and strong, and yet there remained in her wide gaze, in her tenuous smile, an innocence that sparkled like a treasure rivaling any other.
“Who gave ya the garb?” he asked, trying to sound glib.
He noted the slight disappointment marring her brow, likely because he didn’t tell her how maddeningly beguiling she looked.
“Mr. Pierce did after he showed me to my new quarters. A closet, I believe he called it. He said these clothes belonged to a dead sailor called John Gable. He said Mr. Gable was the smallest man he ever knew.”
Alex laughed, remembering his crewman Gable. “Aye, he was. His slight size made it possible fer him to repair the masts at their highest point, without fallin’.”
“Do ye think I could make it up to the crow’s nest?”
The crow’s nest? Was she mad to think he would allow her to climb to the highest point on the ship and nestle in a small box secured to a mast?
“Nay. Absolutely not.”
“But ye just said that Mr. Gable did it.”
“Aye, and it killed him one afternoon durin’ a storm. Don’t argue,” he said when she opened her mouth.
He ignored her indignation. Rather her anger than her death.
He looked down at her bare feet and ankles. “Wise. Ya will do less fallin’.”
“I fell only once.” Well, all right she had to confess. “A few times. But I already have a splinter, and in truth, I dinna’ know which is worse.”
He liked the sound of her voice along with everything else. “Sit with me after supper and I’ll pluck it out.”
Instead of answering, she moved to the rail and drew her palm over it. “I have a theory,” she told him as their ship moved past the other, “that once a boat stabs ye, ye’re kin.”
“Aye,” he agreed. “But she wouldn’t have ya die from an infection in yar foot. Splinters get taken out. Savvy?”
She nodded, then, when he looked away, across the sea, she moved closer to him. “Ye have my gratitude fer letting me and Kyle stay a little longer. But if I may be completely honest…” She waited until he nodded. “I don’t think all this ordering me aboot will be in our best interest if we mean to get along.”
He almost laughed right in her face. Neptune’s arse, but he loved her honesty. She wasn’t afraid of him in the least. Every sailor should fear his captain a little. It kept mutiny from happening. Still, he liked that she wasn’t afraid of him.
But she couldn’t be in earnest with these claims that she truly wanted to stay. What woman would ever want this kind of life? She’d tried to convince him of her desire to remain, but he had to suspect that she had intended on staying from the beginning. To somehow find a way to beguile him until her first opportunity to rob him presented itself.
“Ya are goin’ to have to bury yar feet in a bucket of warm sand every night so that yar soles don’t get so soft they rot. Many of the men have lost their toes. Two weeks on any ship and ya’re goin’ to have to eat food that’s goin’ bad. The water goes warm and stagnant, but ya drink i
t if ya want to keep livin’. Some of the men begin to stink… Hell, everything begins to stink. Soon, ya will find yarself considerin’ jumpin’ overboard to end the misery of boredom. And if there’s ever a fight, like today, most men will try to rape ya. Ya will have to fight and kill without remorse.”
“But ye’re free,” she insisted. “Free to make yer own choices.”
He smiled and shook his head. “If bein’ trapped on a ship fer weeks, sometimes months, at a time is free to ya.”
She considered his words for a moment, then shrugged her dainty shoulders. “’Tis temporary. Ye’re moving forward, heading fer parts unknown. Keeping that in mind would aid in keeping ungrateful thoughts at bay.”
He sized her up. Perhaps she truly did have a strong passion for adventure. Would it matter to him in the end if she were after his treasure, or after his ship?
He would give up neither.
But for an instant, he imagined her standing at his side at the helm, in his bed beneath him, atop him. He fought the urge to coil his arm around her waist and drag her in close to him. Nay, he didn’t want a woman sailing the seas with him.
“Ya come from a wild, beautiful place,” he said, taking hold of the rigging and of her to keep her from falling. “Why would ya prefer this?”
“No place on earth will ever be more bonnie to me than Camlochlin,” she said, looking out over the sea, “but though they are unseen, and despite the loving reasons they were placed there, I live with chains around my ankles. My kin are proscribed. Leaving Skye could get me arrested withoot trial and hanged withoot my kin even knowing. My father would never have let me leave.”
She could be hanged? He pushed back at the anger boiling to the surface. He couldn’t save his father years ago. But now he would massacre anyone who tried to put a noose around Caitrina Grant’s sweet neck. “I’ve heard of this proscription,” he told her. “While ya’re a part of me crew, even if ’tis only until we reach Portugal, I won’t let anyone hurt ya.”
She smiled, keeping her eyes on the horizon. “And Kyle?”
He sighed inwardly. “Kyle can keep himself safe, but if he needs me help, he will have it.” Bloody hell, would he promise her anything? When she turned her smile on him, he knew that he would.