Her hand brushed something—something solid—something covered in cloth. Abruptly her hair was snagged. The sudden, sharp pain in her scalp almost made her gasp, which would certainly have ended the struggle right then and there. Her head whipped around, but this watery hell in which she was trapped was too dark: She could see nothing of what had caught her. It yanked her in the direction she thought was upward. Because of that she did not struggle as it towed her in its wake. She went with it, using her hands and feet to push against the black water. Her lungs were now aching, burning instruments of torture in her chest. Her heart beat against her ribs like the wings of a caged wild bird. Blood pounded feverishly in her temples. Suddenly she realized that she had the answer to her question: Yes, it hurts to drown.
With that thought, miraculously, her head popped through the surface. Her staring, stinging eyes recorded blurry images of surging waves topped with white foam swelling against a starless sky. Her mouth opened instinctively, like a hungry baby bird’s. She sucked in air, blessed air, in a greedy gasp. But the crashing sea broke over her even as she filled her lungs, forcing her under once again.
This time, though, as she choked on salt water and fought against the freezing depths, she was not alone. She felt a solid presence behind her, kicking and fighting with her. Something wrapped around her waist—an arm, she thought. From the size and iron strength of it, a man’s arm. Whoever had dragged her from the abyss by her hair was with her still. One of her would-be murderers, bent on saving her from the depths so that he could drown her in a fashion more to his liking? The absurdity of it boggled her mind.
Not that, at the moment, she even cared about his reasons, she realized as her lungs began to burn again. All she cared about at the moment was having air to breathe. . . .
As unexpectedly as she’d gone under, she surfaced again. Or, rather, they surfaced. Her rescuer was right behind her. She heard his harsh gasps for air underlining her own. His arm was wrapped around her rib cage now just beneath her breasts. As unyielding as a manacle, it locked her, with her back to his front, against a large, strong body in constant motion as it fought to keep them afloat. Even with his best efforts, and her own, her chin just barely cleared the surging water.
Still, she could breathe.
“Master Hugh!”
Claire instinctively glanced in the direction of the shout. So intent on drawing in air had she been that she only just now noticed the longboat riding the waves some little distance away. The lantern had been lit; held high, its yellow glow illuminated the boat itself and the roiling black water. She and her rescuer, however, were well beyond its range.
“Here!”
The answering shout boomed nearly in her ear, its timbre hoarse but its volume startlingly loud. Claire started, and felt the arm tighten beneath her breasts. The chest against which her back rested heaved. She felt the movements of strong legs kicking beneath hers, saw a brawny arm in a soaked white sleeve, twin to the one that shackled her to him, carve through the dark water in front of her, and again tried to help. But her limbs were numb, and her movements were feeble.
“Fight me, vixen, and I’ll knock you unconscious.”
The threat was a savage growl in her ear. She felt the rasp of a sandpapery jaw against her cheek as he spoke, and realized that his grip on her had tightened to the point where it was almost painful.
“I’m not fighting.” Her voice was almost unrecognizable to her. It was husky, ragged, barely audible above the roar of the sea. She wasn’t even sure if he had heard.
She was, she realized with dismal clarity, beyond struggling. Her strength was spent. Breathing took all her energy. He, and he alone, was keeping them afloat. Her arms and legs were numb and all but lifeless. She could not have fought him if she had wanted to. But she didn’t want to. The prospect of drowning, which she would surely do if he let her go, terrified her more at the moment than anything else; it terrified her more than he did.
Another wave exploded in her face. Claire choked, gasping, as torrents of water cascaded over her. Forced under, she made her frozen limbs move by sheer force of will. The arm beneath her breasts tightened punishingly as he kicked with her. Seconds later her head once again broke the surface, and she sucked in air.
“Be still, damn you.”
He was hungry for air, too. She could hear the harsh rasp of his breathing even as his bristly jaw once again scraped her cheek. His arm around her was so tight that her chest could barely expand to let air in. She squirmed against it in feeble protest.
“I can’t breathe. Your arm . . .”
He made a harsh sound but he must have understood because his hold on her relaxed by the smallest of degrees. She inhaled thankfully. Her heart was still beating at triple time, and her limbs could have been made of lead. Her head, too, suddenly felt amazingly heavy, too heavy for her neck to support. It drooped backward of its own accord and found a resting place on her rescuer’s broad shoulder. A sideways glance revealed that his lips were parted as he, like she, struggled to breathe. What she could see of his profile was limned in dull gold. His forehead, nose, and chin, she noted in passing, were well-shaped and unmistakably masculine.
“Master Hugh!”
The cry, louder than before, brought her attention around to her left. There, miraculously, was the longboat, now just a few yards away. Of course, the high-held lantern accounted for the glow that outlined her rescuer’s features. They were now within its nimbus of light.
Even as she registered that, a rope, sinuous as a snake, sailed through the air and struck the rippling surface beside them before quickly starting to sink. He grabbed it before it could disappear, a strong male hand latching on ruthlessly to a lifeline, and with a series of deft twists of his wrist wrapped it several times around his palm. Then his fist closed over it, and, whether through his efforts or the efforts of the men in the boat, they were suddenly being propelled through the water with a force and speed that defied the swelling waves.
Thus, she thought bleakly, ended her effort at escape. Claire accepted that even as she realized that the safety the boat represented was nothing more than an illusion. What she was really doing was merely exchanging one horrifying death for another, later, one.
But the prospect of life, for however much longer it was granted her, was suddenly unbearably sweet.
When two of the men reached over the side, grasping her under the arms and hauling her on board, she could not be other than thankful.
“Watch her,” her rescuer said as she collapsed in a soaked, shivering heap in the bottom of the boat.
Coughing in shuddering spasms as her body fought to rid itself of the water it had taken in, she lay huddled in a ball much as before, but conscious now and cured of all thoughts of escape. Her tongue felt fuzzy and swollen. Her eyes stung.
She watched blearily as he, too, was pulled from the water. Grimacing, he maneuvered himself into a sitting position close beside her huddled form. His back rested against the edge of a plank seat, and his arms stretched across his bent knees so that his hands hung free. They were strong-looking hands with long fingers from which water dripped in a steady rhythm. He was coughing too, though not as violently as she was, and then the cough turned abruptly into a wheeze. She could hear the painful-sounding whistle of air between his teeth as he inhaled.
The other man, the one with the lantern, crouched beside him, looking him over with concern. By its light she saw that this second man boasted a neatly trimmed beard and was, as she had suspected, quite pudgy. Her rescuer, on the other hand, was muscular and lean.
“For God’s sake, put out the light,” her rescuer said testily between wheezes.
“Oh, aye.”
The lantern door was opened and the flame extinguished. Plunged into darkness once more, the boat rode the waves in near silence, save for a mutter or two among the sailors and the sounds of the dipping oars and roaring sea.
“Drink this, Master Hugh.”
The pudgy man
produced a jug much like the one that had seduced and betrayed her and held it to her rescuer’s lips. With an irritable sound, her rescuer took the jug and chugged down a goodly portion of the contents. Lowering it at last, he wiped his arm across his lips.
“Give her some.” He nodded at Claire.
The pudgy man glanced at her with dislike, but he took the jug and turned to her.
“You. Drink.”
The words registered, along with the hostility that lay beneath them, but even had she wished to, movement of any sort was beyond her for the moment. When she did not respond, he made an impatient sound under his breath and reached over to lift her head so that it rested against his leg. Putting the jug to her lips, he tilted it. Claire instinctively opened her mouth to a rush of liquid.
It was ale, she discovered, so raw and unpleasant-tasting that she almost gagged. But it was wet, and it cut through the horrible salty taste coating the inside of her mouth. She swallowed, then swallowed again. As it hit her stomach she was conscious of a slight, spreading warmth that was very welcome. Finally, coughing, she could drink no more, and pushed the jug aside. Without a word, the pudgy man moved away.
Emotionally as well as physically spent, reduced to a mass of what felt like shivering jelly, she lay miserably at her rescuer’s feet, awash in seawater, no longer coughing but still so cold and exhausted that she was only peripherally aware of what was happening around her.
Someone pulled her wrists behind her and bound them, and she didn’t struggle. Then her ankles were bound, too, not tightly but just enough to prevent her from using her feet. Glancing down, she saw that the pudgy man was the one tying her up. Clearly he was taking precautions against another escape attempt.
Or he was trussing her up to toss her back into the sea?
Her gaze met his as the last knot was tied, but it held no rancor, no dislike. She should have felt frightened, she knew, but instead she felt—resignation. Closing her eyes, she realized that she was glad of the utter dispassion that gripped her. It made everything so much easier to bear, such as the knowledge that, sooner or later on this hellish night, she was going to die.
Some minutes later, shouts and a flurry of activity on the part of the men caused her eyes to blink open. A stab of fear penetrated the impassivity that cloaked her as she wondered if all the commotion meant her time was at hand. A great black hulk of a ship met her gaze, rising like a mountain in front of the small boat. The rowboat was, she realized, now parallel to the enormous newcomer.
Frowning, Claire tried to fit the appearance of the ship in with what she knew of her captors’ plans, and couldn’t. She was still puzzling over it as lines were thrown and caught and the rowboat was steadied.
“You, take her.”
The voice was her rescuer’s. The words were clearly a command. Claire’s gaze was swinging around to find him when, with the rowboat pitching drunkenly, a brawny sailor stepped over the plank seat behind her and, with legs braced wide apart, bent over her. Without further warning, she was picked up and hoisted over a stout shoulder, then left to dangle head-down while the man carrying her ascended a rope ladder that had been thrown down from the ship.
5
The ladder was a flimsy thing that twisted and swayed with each roll of the sea, but the sailor seemed to have no difficulty managing, even with her added weight to contend with. For her part, Claire didn’t struggle. One horrified glance down into the roiling black water was enough to convince her of the suicidal folly of that, and bring on an immediate attack of nausea-inducing vertigo to boot.
For the seeming eternity of that perilous ascent, she remained limp as a sack of meal, eyes closed tightly and mind engaged in fervent prayer. With her hands bound behind her, she had no means of steadying herself. Her shivering body shifted with the sailor’s every movement. If he lost his grip, she would plunge straight down into the little boat below—or, worse, the hungry waves.
Please God, don’t let me die tonight, was the refrain that ran over and over through her head. She felt like she had been saying it forever. How, how had she come to this? Less than a dozen hours previous, she had been safe in her own coach.
With a heave and a jolt that almost caused her to bite her tongue, she and the sailor were over the rail.
“Eh, will you look at that? Young Corbin’s done brung us a present!”
“Well done, lad!”
“I’ll trade ye me rum rations for ’er.”
“Ah, she be worth more than that! I’ll tell ye what: I’ll give ye my timepiece.”
With catcalls and whistles and so many bawdy comments that Claire closed her ears to them, what seemed like the entire crew surrounded them as they moved across the deck. Claire’s eyes opened wide as, without warning, she was shrugged from the sailor’s shoulder to fall into the hands of a crowd of men all too eager to receive her. Perhaps six of them caught her, their grasping hands saving her from landing painfully on the deck. But, she thought seconds later, even that would have been preferable to the means they used to keep her from it. Bound as she was, she had no way to prevent them from sliding their hands over her knees, her calves, even up her thighs. Her slim pale legs were bare, she discovered to her horror as they grabbed at her; the sea had obviously claimed her half-boots and stockings without her being aware of it. More hands slid beneath her arms, where they lodged with fingers splayed uncomfortably close to her breasts. Horrified, Claire realized that the men were enjoying themselves, enjoying touching her.
She shuddered in disgust. At the thought of what they might do next, her stomach churned as stormily as the sea. A rush of adrenaline strengthened her. Her gelatinous muscles, responding to the call, stiffened. She’d thought she was spent, that there was no fight left in her. In the face of this hideous new threat, she discovered, to her everlasting gratitude, that she was wrong.
“Let me go!”
Held by who knew how many pairs of hands in a supine position parallel to the deck, she struggled to free herself, writhing like a caterpillar fighting free of its cocoon. They ignored her efforts, of course, save for smirks, and a group chortle of what sounded like delight as she managed to kick a nearly toothless old man in the stomach with her bound feet, causing him to double over. One man dangled a lantern over her; the others, gawking, crowded closer yet.
“A fine, pretty piece she is!”
“Put me down! Get your hands off me!” Anger fueled by a lifetime of having to fend off evil-intentioned men added strength to Claire’s cry.
“Aiyee, she’s scarin’ me!”
A round of guffaws greeted this sally; the hands holding her shifted, tightened. Furious at her helplessness, she made a hissing sound through her teeth and tried again to kick. Bound as she was, the effort was fruitless. All it did was give them more to ogle as they laughed and dodged.
“Blimey, looks like we caught us a bleedin’ mermaid!”
“Aye, but if she’s ’alf as cold as she feels, she’ll be giving us an ’ell of an icy ride.”
“Hawks, ye fool, we’ll warm ’er up first.”
“If ye’re wantin’ volunteers, I’ll do the warmin’.”
The last speaker’s grizzled face split in a wide grin; another, younger, bearded man pressed so close she could smell the sourness of his breath. He was aiming to kiss her, she realized with revulsion, and sharply turned her face to one side. His moist warm lips just grazed her neck. Her skin crawled. His mates roared approval.
“Stop it! Leave me alone!”
Struggling was useless, but still she struggled. A hand stroked caressingly along the bare underside of her calf. Sour Breath came back for another try at claiming a kiss. Claire’s chest tightened and her mouth went dry with fear as she eluded him a second time. It took no very great intellect for her to realize what was about to happen. She couldn’t bear it. . . .
“All right, leave off. You there, and you: Take her to my cabin.”
Just a little while before, that gravelly voice had sent icy
fingers of fear trailing down Claire’s spine. Now she welcomed it as she might welcome the sun in the morning. It belonged to her rescuer—Master Hugh, the pudgy man had called him—who was now on deck too, and it had an immediate quelling effect on the men holding her. Sour Breath straightened. The hand that was sliding up her thigh was withdrawn. Hugh never stopped, but walked on past her and the gathered men with scarcely more than a passing glance. It was clear that having given the order, he expected it to be obeyed. The glimpse she caught of him confirmed her earlier impression that he was tall and lean, broad-shouldered, with an athlete’s easy grace. He was as wet as she was: His hair, shoulder-length and dripping, was plastered tightly against his skull and gleamed as shiny black as a seal’s in the lantern light. His clothes—a white shirt and black breeches—were soaked through, clinging wetly everywhere they touched. Like her, he had lost his shoes and stockings to the sea. His bare feet were pale against the dark planks, and he left a trail of water in his wake.
“Ah, sir, what ’arm would it do if we was to ’ave a wee bit o’ sport with ’er?” It was a wheedling question, called after Hugh as he passed.
“You heard me. Take her to my cabin.”
This man was her enemy and intended her harm. Yet, he had jumped into the sea to save her life, and now was calling off the sailors. He was no friend to her, she knew. But suddenly he seemed far more of an ally than any of the others. Just why he had saved her, and precisely how this whole scenario fit into her captors’ plans to ultimately do away with her, she had no idea.
Was it possible, came a tantalizing hope, that the leader had been telling the truth after all about a ransom having been paid? Perhaps, instead of still being intent on her murder, they were transporting her somewhere where she would be released?
Yes, and perhaps she would wake up one morning as the Queen of England, too, Claire thought tartly.
Irresistible Page 4