by Julia Quinn
“Listen to him,” Poppy said. “He’s obviously very intelligent.”
Green’s friend stood up a little straighter and beamed. “The name’s Brown,” he said, nodding politely at her.
“Er, pleased to meet you,” Poppy said, wondering if she ought to extend her hand.
“Do you think I want to take her?” Green said. “Bad luck having a woman on a ship, and especially this one.”
Poppy’s lips parted at the insult. “Well,” she said, only to be cut off by Brown, who asked, “What’s wrong with this one? She said I was intelligent.”
“Which only goes to show that she ain’t. And besides, she talks.”
“So do you,” Poppy shot back.
“See?” Green said.
“She’s not so bad,” Brown said.
“You just said you didn’t want her on the boat!”
“Well, I don’t, but—”
“There is nothing worse than a talky female,” Green grumbled.
“There are many things that are worse,” Poppy said, “and you’re quite fortunate if you’ve never experienced them.”
Green looked at her for a long moment. Just looked at her. Then he groaned, “The captain’s gonna kill us.”
“Not if you don’t take me with you,” Poppy hastened to say. “He’ll never know.”
“He’ll know,” Green said ominously. “He always knows.”
Poppy chewed on her lower lip, assessing her options. She doubted she could outrun them, and Green was blocking her path to the entrance, in any event. She supposed she could cry and hope that her tears might appeal to the softer sides of their natures, but that presumed that they had softer sides.
She looked at Green and smiled hesitantly, testing the waters.
Green ignored her and turned to his friend. “What time—” He stopped. Brown was gone. “Brown!” he yelled. “Where the hell’d you go?”
Brown’s head popped up from behind a stack of trunks. “Just getting some rope.”
Rope? Poppy’s throat went dry.
“Good,” Green grunted.
“You do not want to tie me up,” Poppy said, her throat apparently still wet enough for words.
“No, that I don’t,” he said, “but I have to do it, anyway, so let’s make it easy for the both of us, eh?”
“Surely you don’t think I will allow you to take me without a struggle?”
“I’d been hoping.”
“Well, you can keep hoping, sir, because I—”
“Brown!” Green hollered.
With enough force that Poppy actually shut her mouth.
“Got the rope!” came the answer.
“Good. Get the other stuff as well.”
“What other stuff?” Brown asked.
“Yes,” Poppy said nervously. “What other stuff?”
“The other stuff,” Green said impatiently. “You know what I mean. And a cloth.”
“Oh, the other stuff,” Brown said. “Righto.”
“What other stuff?” Poppy demanded.
“You don’t want to know,” Green told her.
“I assure you I do,” Poppy said, just as she was beginning to think that maybe she didn’t.
“You said you were going to struggle,” he explained.
“Yes, but what does that have to do—”
“Remember when I said I was too old for this?”
She nodded.
“Well, ‘this’ includes a struggle.”
Brown reemerged, clutching a green bottle that looked vaguely medicinal. “Here y’go,” he said, handing it to Green.
“Not that I couldn’t manage you,” Green explained, popping the cork. “But why? Why make it harder than I have to?”
Poppy had no answer. She stared at the bottle. “Are you going to make me drink that?” she whispered. It smelled foul.
Green shook his head. “You got a cloth?” he asked Brown.
“Sorry.”
Green let out another tired groan and eyed the linen fichu she’d used to fill in the bodice of her dress. “We’ll have to use your handkerchief,” he said to Poppy. “Hold still.”
“What are you doing?” she cried out, jerking backward as he yanked the fichu free.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and strangely enough, it sounded as if he meant it.
“Don’t do this,” Poppy gasped, scrambling as far away from him as she could.
But it wasn’t very far, given that her back was to the cave wall, and as she looked on in horror, he poured a liberal amount of the noxious liquid onto the whisper-thin linen of her fichu. It became quickly saturated, and several drops fell through, disappearing into the damp ground.
“You’re going to have to hold her,” Green said to Brown.
“No,” Poppy said, as Brown’s arms came around her. “No.”
“Sorry,” Brown said, and it sounded as if he meant it too.
Green scrunched the fichu into a ball and placed it over her mouth. Poppy gagged, gasping against the onslaught of foul fumes.
And then the world slipped away.
Chapter 2
Andrew Rokesby strode along the decks of the Infinity, giving the ship one last inspection before they set sail at precisely four that afternoon. Everything appeared to be in order, from bow to stern, and except for Brown and Green, every man was accounted for and well-prepared for the voyage that lay ahead of them.
“Pinsley!” Andrew called out, tilting his head up toward the young man tending to the rigging.
“Yes, sir!” Pinsley called down. “What is it, sir?”
“Have you seen Brown and Green? I sent them out to the cave earlier today for some supplies.”
“Supplies, sir?” Pinsley said with a cheeky grin. Everyone knew why Andrew had really sent out Brown and Green.
“One little tilt of the wheel, and you’ll be hanging by your fingertips,” Andrew warned.
“They’re below, sir,” Pinsley said with a grin. “Saw ’em head down a quarter hour ago.”
“Below?” Andrew echoed, shaking his head. Brown and Green had work to do; there was no reason they should be below.
Pinsley shrugged, or at least Andrew thought he did. It was difficult to tell with the sun in his eyes.
“They was carrying a sack,” Pinsley said.
“A sack?” Andrew echoed. He’d sent them for a crate of brandy. Every man had his indulgences, and his were women in port and French brandy at sea. He had one glass every night, following his supper. Kept life civilized, or at least as civilized as he wanted it.
“Looked real heavy-like,” Pinsley added.
“Brandy in a sack,” Andrew muttered. “Madre de Dios, it’ll be nothing but shards and fumes by now.” He glanced up at Pinsley, who was at work lashing the ropes, and then turned to the narrow staircase that led below.
It was his policy to have a brief word with each member of his crew, no matter how high or low, before the Infinity took to sea. It ensured that each knew his role in the mission at hand, and the men appreciated the show of respect. His crew was small but fiercely loyal. Each would have laid down his life for him, Andrew knew that. But that was because they knew their captain was prepared to do the same.
Andrew was unquestionably in command, and there wasn’t a man aboard who would dare counter one of his orders, but then again, there wasn’t a man aboard who would want to.
“Sir!”
Andrew looked behind him. It was Green, who’d obviously come up the other staircase.
“Ah, there you are,” Andrew said, motioning for him to follow. Green was the most senior member of his crew, having joined one day earlier than Brown. The pair had been bickering like old women ever since.
“Sir!” Green said again, running along the deck to catch up with him.
“Talk as we walk,” Andrew said, turning his back to him as he strode toward the staircase that led to his cabin. “I need to secure some things in my cabin.”
“But sir, I need to tell you�
��”
“And what the hell happened with my brandy?” Andrew asked, taking the steps two at a time. “Pinsley said you came aboard with a sack. A sack,” he added, shaking his head.
“Right,” Green said, making a strange sound.
Andrew turned around. “Are you quite all right?”
Green gulped. “The thing is—”
“Did you just gulp?”
“No, sir, I—”
Andrew turned away, getting back to business. “You should see Flanders about that throat. He’s got some kind of concoction to cure it. Tastes like the devil, but it works, I can attest to that.”
“Sir,” Green said, following him down the hall.
“Brown’s aboard?” Andrew asked, grasping the handle to his door.
“Yes, sir, but sir—”
“Good, then we’ll be ready to sail right on schedule.”
“Sir!” Green practically cried out, wedging himself between Andrew and the door.
“What is it, Green?” Andrew asked with forced patience.
Green opened his mouth, but whatever it was he wanted to say, he clearly lacked the words to do so.
Andrew placed both his hands under Green’s arms, lifted him up, and set him aside.
“Before you go in there . . .” Green said in a strangled voice.
Andrew pushed open the door.
And found a woman lying on his bed, bound, gagged, and looking as if she’d shoot flames from her eyes were it anatomically possible.
Andrew stared at her for a full second, idly taking in her thick chestnut hair and bright green eyes. He let his gaze wander down to the rest of her—she was a woman, after all—and smiled.
“A present?” he murmured. “For me?”
If she got out of this alive, Poppy decided, she was going to kill every damn man on the ship.
Starting with Green.
No, Brown.
No, definitely Green. Brown might have let her go if she’d had a chance to talk him into it, but Green deserved nothing less than a permanent pox on his house.
And that of his every last descendant.
Hmmph. That assumed the odious man could find a woman willing to procreate with him, which Poppy sincerely doubted was possible. In fact, she thought rather viciously, it was going to be physically impossible by the time she got through with him. Four brothers taught a woman a great deal about how to fight dirty, and if she ever managed to get her ankles unbound, she was going to plant her knee right in his—
Click.
She looked up. Someone was coming in.
“Before you go in there . . .” she heard a familiar voice say.
The door swung open, revealing not Green, and not Brown, but a man at least a dozen years younger, and so blindingly handsome that Poppy was quite certain her mouth would have dropped open if she hadn’t been gagged.
His hair was a rich warm brown, sun-streaked with gold and pulled into a devilish queue at the back of his neck. His face was quite simply perfect, with full, finely molded lips that tipped up at the corners, leaving him with an expression of permanent mischief. And his eyes were blue, so vividly so that she could discern their color from across the room.
Those eyes traveled the length of her, from head to toe, and then back again. It was quite the most intimate perusal Poppy had ever been subjected to, and, damn it all, she felt herself blush.
“A present?” he murmured, his lips curving ever so slightly. “For me?”
“Mmmph grrmph shmmph!” Poppy grunted, struggling against her bindings.
“Er, this is what I was trying to tell you about,” Green said, sliding into the room beside the mysterious stranger.
“This?” the other man murmured, his voice silky smooth.
“Her,” Green amended, the single syllable hanging heavy in the air, as if she were Bloody Mary crossed with Medusa.
Poppy glared at him and growled.
“My, my,” the younger man said, quirking a brow. “I scarcely know what to say. Not in my usual fashion, but fetching nonetheless.”
Poppy watched him warily as he came farther into the cabin. He’d uttered barely a handful of words, but it was enough to know that he was no lowborn sailor. He spoke like an aristocrat, and he moved like one too. She knew the sort. She’d spent the last two years trying (but not really trying) to get one to marry her.
The man turned to Green. “Any particular reason she’s lying on my bed?”
“She found the cave, Captain.”
“Was she looking for the cave?”
“Don’t know, sir. I didn’t ask. I think it was an accident.”
The captain regarded her with an unsettlingly even expression before turning back to Green and asking, “What do you propose we do with her?”
“I don’t know, Captain. We couldn’t just leave her there. It was still full of our haul from the last voyage. If we let her go, she’d’ve just told someone about it.”
“Or taken it for herself,” the captain said thoughtfully.
Poppy grunted at the insult. As if she were unprincipled enough to resort to stealing.
The captain looked at her with an arched brow. “She seems to have an opinion about that,” he said.
“She has a great many opinions,” Green said darkly.
“Is that so?”
“We took her gag off while we were waiting for you,” Green explained. “Had to put it back on after a minute. Less, really.”
“That bad, eh?”
Green nodded. “Got me in the back of the head with her hands too.”
Poppy grunted with satisfaction.
The captain turned back to her, looking almost impressed. “Should’ve bound her hands in back,” he said.
“I wasn’t going to untie her long enough to redo it,” Green muttered, rubbing his head.
The captain nodded thoughtfully.
“We didn’t have time to unload the cave,” Green continued. “And besides, no one’s ever found it before. It’s valuable even without anything in it. Who knows what we might need to hide there.”
The captain shrugged. “It’s worthless now,” he said, crossing his powerful arms. “Unless, of course, we kill her.”
Poppy gasped, the sound audible even over the gag.
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said, rather offhandedly. “We’ve never killed anyone who didn’t need killing, and never a woman. Although,” he added, idly rubbing his chin, “there have been one or two . . .” He looked up, blinding her with a smile. “Well, never you mind.”
“Actually, sir,” Green said, stepping forward.
“Hmm?”
“There was that one in Spain. Málaga?”
The captain looked at him blankly until his memory was jogged. “Oh, that one. Well, that doesn’t count. I’m not even sure she was female.”
Poppy’s eyes widened. Who were these people?
And then, just when she thought the two of them might sit down for a leisurely drink, the captain snapped open his pocket watch with precise, almost military, movements and said, “We’re to sail in less than two hours. Do we even know who she is?”
Green shook his head. “She wouldn’t say.”
“Where’s Brown? Does he know?”
“No, sir,” came the answer from Brown himself, standing in the doorway.
“Oh, there you are,” the captain said. “Green and I were just discussing this unexpected development.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“It’s not your fault,” the captain said. “You did the right thing. But we do have to ascertain her identity. She’s finely dressed,” he added, motioning to Poppy’s blue walking dress. “Someone will be missing her.”
He stepped toward the bed, reaching for her gag, but both Green and Brown leapt forward, Green grabbing his arm and Brown actually wedging his body between the captain and the bed.
“You do not want to do that,” Green said ominously.
“I beg you, sir,” Brown pleaded, “d
o not remove the gag.”
The captain stopped for a moment and looked from man to man. “What, pray tell, is she going to do?”
Green and Brown said nothing, but they both backed up, almost to the wall.
“Good God,” the captain said impatiently. “Two grown men.”
And then he removed the gag.
“You!” Poppy burst out, practically spitting at Green.
Green blanched.
“And you,” she growled at Brown. “And you!” she finished, glaring at the captain.
The captain quirked a brow. “And now that you’ve demonstrated your extensive vocabulary—”
“I am going to kill each and every one of you,” she hissed. “How dare you tie me up and leave me here for hours—”
“It was thirty minutes,” Brown protested.
“It felt like hours,” she railed, “and if you think I’m going to sit here and accept this type of abuse from a pack of idiot pirates—”
She coughed uncontrollably. The bloody captain had shoved the gag back in.
“Right,” the captain said. “I understand perfectly now.”
Poppy bit his finger.
“That,” he said smoothly, “was a mistake.”
Poppy glared at him.
“Oh, and by the by,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “we prefer the term privateer.”
She growled, grinding her teeth around the gag.
“I’ll remove that,” he said, “if you promise to behave.”
She hated him. Oh, how she hated him. It had taken less than five minutes, but already she was certain she’d never hate anyone with quite the same intensity, with the same fervor, with—
“Very well,” he said, shrugging. “We set sail precisely at four, if you’re interested.”
And then he just turned and walked to the door. Poppy grunted. She had no choice.
“Can you behave?” he asked, his voice annoyingly silky and warm.
She nodded, but her eyes were mutinous.
He walked back to the bed. “Promise?” he asked mockingly.
Her chin jerked in a furious approximation of a nod.
He leaned down and gingerly removed the gag.
“Water,” she gasped, hating that she was begging.
“Happy to oblige,” he said, pouring her a glass from the pitcher on his table. He held it to her lips while she drank, since her hands were still tied. “Who are you?” he asked.