The Ravishing One

by Connie Brockway

  Long, damp ropes of hair clung to her shoulders and throat. She looked up at his entrance, bringing her face directly into the shaft of the late-afternoon light. Her skin was a ghastly milky green, her dark-ringed eyes bleak with mortification.

  “Go away!” she pleaded weakly.

  He swung around, jerked open the door to his cabin, and ducked inside. He grabbed his water pitcher from the table, a tin cup, and a hand towel and returned to Fia’s room. She hadn’t moved, only hunkered down closer to the basin. He sloshed water into the cup and thrust it at her.

  “Drink this.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Drink it,” he commanded. She glared up at him through the tangled ropes of hair.

  “I—I can’t—oh—oh—” She jerked forward and retched. A weak retch. Not much spirit to it. Not much of anything to it.

  He sat down and wrapped an arm about her shoulders. Her skin was moist and clammy, the thin chemise damp with sweat. He lifted her chin up with his fingertips. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut.

  He brought the cup to her lips and tipped it slightly. Water dribbled over her lips and down her chin.

  “Drink it, Fia. It will help. I promise.”

  She obeyed, too weak to argue, too ill to resist.

  “Small sips, is all. There. Feel better?”

  “No,” she moaned softly. He pulled her closer, noting grimly that even though she was so ill she could barely hold her head up, she resisted. She was small in his embrace, so small it surprised him. He could trace the shallow rut between each rib, measure the deep dip at her waist and the gentle camber of her hip with a hand.

  “Relax,” he murmured, laying his palm against her cheek and pressing her face down against his shoulder. She didn’t have the strength to fight, and grudgingly rested her head beneath his chin. The breath coming between her pale lips was shallow. Her small fist curled tightly against his breastbone.

  How she hated this. He could not say how he knew but he was certain it was not humiliation at her physical state she felt, but a deeper distress. He sensed her vulnerability and her own deep contempt for it and remembered his own fury at the tears that had sprung to his eyes with the fall of the bondmaster’s whip.

  Hiding any sign of sympathy that would only increase her sense of defenselessness, he offered her more water. Eyes still squeezed shut as though unwilling to chance seeing his pity, she accepted.

  After she’d taken a few sips he leaned sideways, carrying her with him. He dipped the towel into the pitcher and wrung it out as best he could with one hand. Gently, but with matter-of-fact sureness, he swabbed her forehead and eyes, her cheeks, lips, and throat.

  “You won’t die,” he said after another dry wretch racked her body and subsided.

  At this her eyes finally opened, sunken and clouded with misery. “That,” she said, “is exactly what I am afraid of.”

  He grinned, surprised by her unexpected humor and surprised even more when an answering smile flickered briefly across her pale lips, a smile unlike any she’d ever given him. Their gazes met and held for a heartbeat and then she pulled back, a frown troubling her moist brow. She turned her head and shut her eyes again.

  “You have the seasickness,” he explained.

  “Really?” she asked with devastating sarcasm, her icy composure wrenched back into place. “Thank you so much for informing me. And here I thought it but this morning’s kipper—” Her eyes abruptly widened, her sarcasm ending in another dry retch.

  He could have shaken her. He felt cheated and angered, and hated the flippancy she so readily assumed. Hated that the bit of—What to call it? Humanity? Honesty?—he had seen had been snatched away.

  “Serves you right, you rancorous, viper-tongued wench,” he muttered as he bent her forcibly over his forearm and rubbed her back between the delicate winglike thrust of her shoulder blades. Her head twisted and she shot him a startled glance.

  “What?”

  He grunted. “Has no one ever called you a rancorous, viper-tongued wench before?”

  She blinked. Apparently not.

  “Well, there’s an oversight ’Twould be hard to forgive! For had someone had the balls to call you out earlier on that caustic tongue, it might have been recast in a more genial mold. As it is, I fear whoever ends up wedding you, Milady Maleficence, will go to bed each night praying God he meets the next morning without having been bled dry, pricked a thousand times over by that savage tongue of yours.”

  The glance turned to wide-eyed wonder. “You! You! You—ohhh!” The tongue-lashing she obviously longed to deliver was subverted by another spasm, folding her in half over his forearm, shudders wracking her body. When she was done she reached for the tin cup standing on the floor and with a shaking hand raised it to her mouth. She took a short drink and straightened cautiously.

  “You are no gentleman.”

  “Really?” he asked. “Thank you so much for informing—uff!” Her elbow caught him in mid-stomach. A look of open triumph lit her beautiful, disheveled face before another attack of nausea overset it, turning victory to misery and upending her once more over the basin. He held her forehead in his palm, bracing her.

  “Thank you. Go ’way.”

  He hesitated a second before slipping his arm from around her and standing up. She did sound better. She’d drunk enough water to restore her body’s fluids and it did neither of them any good for him to remain here when her opposition to his presence grew stronger with each second.

  “You must eat. I’ll have a plate sent down—”

  “If you bring …” she paused, swallowed audibly, then went on, “food … into this room, I shall not content myself with merely pricking you with words. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Abundantly. But I must insist, in all Christian conscience”—at this her mouth quirked—“that you’ll feel better if you—”

  “Don’t say that word! Get out!” She picked up the wet rag from a puddle on the floor and hurled it at his head. He dodged it easily. She was indeed better. There had been real power in that throw.

  He let himself out and only then discovered that he was smiling. What the hell was he grinning about? The girl had tried to do him bodily harm, shouted at him, and threatened him, and here he reacted as though he’d just received his first kiss. He was certainly mad.

  But damned if later he could remember anything but the spontaneity of her smile.

  And its beauty.

  Chapter 13

  She wasn’t much of a sailor. In fact, she wasn’t any kind of sailor.

  This struck Fia—on the rare occasions during the next two days when she could give consideration to something other than how far away she was from the ubiquitous basin (which by the end of the voyage had supplanted castor oil in topping the hierarchy of her personal hatreds)—as being most unfair. After all, she’d spent her childhood looking out at the sea and dreaming about a tall ship that would carry her away. Tall ships and tall, strong captains …

  That way led to disaster. Better to concentrate on making her way to the upper deck with what was left of the rest of her pride intact. She opened the doors at the top of the stairs and peered out before cautiously stepping onto the decking.

  After three days of roiling seas the morning had dawned calmly. Above, the sky was thick and gray. The Alba Star’s sails filled with a weak wind that moved her sluggishly across the ocean’s flat, mercury-colored back.

  Fia tilted her face to meet the light spray flung back from the ship’s cutting prow. It salted her lips and stung her eyes, but after three days huddled in her sour-smelling cabin she drank the clean air as a thirsty man drinks water. The sound of voices caused her to open her eyes. At once she spotted Thomas. One booted foot planted on the rail, his elbow on his thigh, he stood in earnest conversation with one of the crew. His eyes were narrowed, his dark brows dipped low over his bold nose.

  The wind up top must have been stiffer than where Fia stood, for though Thomas had shed his coat,
his shirt was plastered against his chest. It molded to the hard, flat contours of muscle and bone, billowing like the wind-filled sails above. As she watched, he nodded and straightened, stretching his great, long arms over his head and yawning hugely. He spoke and whatever he said caused the sailor to laugh. Thomas answered with a masculine, confident smile, reminding Fia powerfully that on this ship Thomas was king and the sea was his domain.

  The sailor left and Thomas rubbed the back of his neck, his gaze eastward. The humor disappeared and his features donned a pensive expression. He looked tired and troubled.

  Fia frowned. She did not want to see him vulnerable. She did not want to think of him as troubled or haunted. Not like herself in any way.

  She glanced up again. He’d turned, facing squarely ahead, his fists planted on his hips, his legs straddling the decking in an open stance. The wind whipped his shirt across his lean flanks and teased open the laces at his throat, revealing the strong prow of his collarbone beneath tan flesh.

  She shivered, pulling the light shawl she’d packed more tightly across her shoulders. She had always been attracted to Thomas Donne’s strength, his strength of character as much as his physical one. When she’d met him at Wanton’s Blush, she’d decided that Thomas Donne was the sort of man who would never allow himself to manipulated or blackmailed—not like the others at the castle.

  It set him apart in her mind. No. It set him apart in her heart. His actions to her, courtly to a frustrating degree, had only cemented his place there.

  How childish she’d been. Hindsight easily informed her that what she’d mistaken as his “courtly reticence” had been irony and that his chivalry had been nothing more than casual pity. Well, at least he was no longer casual about her.

  She tipped her chin up to an angle that matched Thomas’s. Her features smoothed to expressionless beauty, the exquisite camouflage that was so much a part of her.

  She’d survived being Carr’s child by facing bitter truths. She would not shy from them now. And the truth was this: In Thomas Donne’s judgment she’d fulfilled the destiny he’d once foretold. She’d become nothing more or less than Carr’s whore. That is why, or so he told himself, he’d taken her from London—to save James Barton from her.

  Well, she wouldn’t allow him the solace of being his comfortable victim. She’d allowed herself to be abducted in part because Thomas Donne needed a lesson.

  She blinked fiercely, ridding her eyes of unwanted tears. She wanted Thomas to know a little of what it felt like to be stripped of one’s illusions.

  He’d betrayed the ideal she’d carried all these years. She’d held Thomas Donne up as an example of a man who was above animal pleasures and animal lusts, who desired only where the heart was engaged, who wanted only what he valued.

  It didn’t make a damn bit of difference to her that it wasn’t fair to him, that he’d never asked to occupy the lofty position she’d assigned him. And it didn’t matter to her that he looked tired and worn. This had nothing to do with fairness! She’d had little trade with that worthy notion and did not intend to start now. This had to do with retribution.

  The Thomas she’d once created in her girlish imagination did not exist. Despite his low opinion of her, he wanted her. In spite of his contempt. In spite of his mistrust. In spite of all of what he presumed to know about her.

  She felt it in the way his gaze fastened on her, in the hesitant compulsion that led him to touch her and, more important, made him refrain from touching her. She discerned it in the angle of his body when he drew near, in the scent of him, in the arousal he took such pains to disguise, in the space between them that nearly shimmered with awareness. Longing. And scorn.

  She pulled the shawl tighter.

  “Lady Fia!”

  She came out of her bitter reverie with a start, distressed to find tears on her face. Quickly she dashed the backs of her hands across her cheeks and turned, startled to find herself trembling.

  “Yes, Captain Donne?” Her voice rose above the snap of the sails, her vow to bring Thomas to his knees revived.

  Thomas snatched his coat from the rail and descended the short flight of stairs to the deck. When he reached her side, he laid his jacket over her shoulders. Suddenly, she was drowning in the dense boiled wool, surrounded by him, her senses inundated with his scent.

  “You are well? No more sickness?” he asked.

  “Much improved.” Blast the man for reminding her of the last few days. It put her at a distinct disadvantage—particularly for a woman bent on seduction. It is hard to be seductive when one’s mind is filled with images of oneself bent over a slop bucket.

  “You do not look well,” he muttered.

  She laughed. “La! Captain! I am at a loss as to how I shall respond to such gallantry. Tell me, just how bad do I look?”

  Ah! That ought to fluster the great dark-skinned brute. His brows lowered forbiddingly. “Your illness has pared the flesh from you and bruised the skin beneath your eyes, but for all that you are as ravishing as ever and well you know it,” he said grudgingly. “I can scarcely credit it, but were you on your deathbed from some wasting illness, I swear you would still be beautiful.”

  It was she who was flustered; she sought some tantalizing reply but could only find a shrewish one. “Do you intend to find more rough seas in order to make me sick again?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “Why would I do that?”

  “To satisfy your curiosity in regard to exactly at what point I might lose my looks.”

  His gaze grew sour. “I would not play so cruel a game.”

  “Wouldn’t you? But here you’ve stolen me from what home I have, taken me from my friends and family, and are carrying me off to a location that you will not reveal.” She smiled sweetly. “Can you blame me for mistaking you for a cruel man?”

  “I have my reasons,” he said.

  “And what might those be?” She swept her arm out, gesturing over the sea. “We are, I should think, sufficiently well away from London for you to entrust me with the motive for your extraordinary action—extraordinary only inasmuch as you say it has nothing of a liaison to it.”

  “It hasn’t.”

  “Well then?” She arched one brow in regal inquiry.

  “I have brought you here not to seduce you, but to keep you from compromising my friend James Barton.”

  She tossed back her head and laughed.

  “Oh!” She sniffed, dabbing at imaginary tears of delight. “Oh! How splendid. Let me see if I have this correct. Essentially, you’ve absconded with me so that your friend doesn’t, is that right?”

  His eyelids narrowed. “Essentially.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you?” she asked, still smiling merrily.

  “It’s the truth. You can do with it what you like. I don’t care.”

  “But I care,” she murmured, stepping nearer until his broad chest shielded her from the wind, while the warmth still contained in his coat cradled her. “Because I think you’re a liar, Captain.”

  His head jerked back. If her gender had been different he would have struck her for saying that.

  She went on, “I know you’ve told yourself that you’re saving James from a terrible mistake. But in truth, a truth I’ll have you admit ere I’m done, you took me because you want me. Not as a hostage. Not as a prisoner. But as your lover.”

  “You’re wrong.” He made the words a vow.

  She laughed again. “You leave me no choice but to demonstrate.”

  His face reflected his distaste. “I’d have thought you too old for these childish games, Fia.”

  She flushed at the rebuke, put off by his attitude of frank disappointment. Men were rarely disappointed in her—sometimes they were disappointed in her decisions, especially those that did not acquiesce to their plans, but not her. She retreated behind her poise, pressing her hand over his left breast.

  “I’ve warned you,” she whispered. “I intend to break your heart.�
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  “You’d have to own it first.”

  He did not look at her.

  “I’ll own your soul as well,” she whispered.

  At that he grinned suddenly, discomposing her once more. “Such dramatics, Fia,” he said, finally looking down at her. “The London theater doesn’t know what it’s missing.”

  She blinked, struggled for some wordplay to return her the advantage. “I prefer,” she purred, “an audience of one.”

  He snorted, encircled her wrist, and removed her hand from his person. “If you plan to seduce me, you’ll have to offer less hackneyed fare than that, m’dear,” he said. “I fear you’ve become accustomed to relying too much on your beauty to do your wooing. I am but a nearsighted fellow and rely on what I hear as much as what I see.

  “If I might be so bold, may I suggest you author a few new lines to pique my interest—that is if you really feel inclined to make a go at securing my unworthy affections—lest I grow bored before the courtship e’er begins?”

  “Oh!” Only years of practicing self-restraint spared her the ignominy of stomping her foot.

  “Now, Fia,” he said, though the smile did not fit quite as easily as it had before. “Don’t let your good mood grow foul over such a trifle. We’re near to landing. Look.”

  Before she could react, he’d placed his hands on her shoulders and spun her about. He pulled her against him so that her back pressed against his chest, his big palms cradling her shoulders and holding her still. His heart beat steadily between her shoulder blades. His hands were warm and strong, his body a ballast behind her.

  A sudden pitch of the sea knocked her off balance, driving her buttocks against the lee of his hips. His breath hissed on a sharp draw. His right arm swooped down across her breasts, bracing her against him. Sinew rippled beneath the sun-dark skin, pressed deep against the soft, pale flesh swelling above her décolletage.