But entertaining such a thought served no purpose, and allowing herself to feel the least degree of attraction for the fellow was pure folly, and worse. In any case, a more probable explanation could be found in the bottle at his elbow, she told herself. Like the glass, it was empty. He had downed the lot. She could still taste the stuff, and, while it had wet her dry mouth and throat as she had intended, it had left an unpleasant burning sensation in its wake. He had consumed much more than she. Perhaps the searing after effect of so much brandy going down his throat in such a brief period of time accounted for his sudden gruffness.
If there should be another explanation, she was better off not knowing it.
“Those letters contain information that could severely compromise England’s effort to win the war,” Hugh continued, then stopped and cleared his throat. Pausing in the act of briskly rubbing life back into her frozen thighs with the towel, Claire glanced up at him again, her gaze sharp with suspicion. He hadn’t moved. Nothing had moved. She was being ridiculous, of course. Doggedly she lowered her eyes again and concentrated on thoroughly drying her calves and feet.
“If the French get hold of them, many innocent lives will be lost. Innocent English lives. You don’t want that, do you? Allow me to buy the letters from you, and give me truthful answers to my questions, and you can enrich yourself handsomely and yet go to sleep at night knowing that, in the end, you remained loyal to your country.”
Any thoughts of him as an attracted and attractive male were swamped by a fresh tide of indignation at this new avowal that he thought her a traitor, and for that small mercy Claire was grateful. What he was, was a stubborn, stupid swine who might well murder her by mistake. That was all she needed to know of him. For a moment, as she straightened with the towel in hand, she considered repeating what had come to feel almost like her mantra: You’ve got the wrong person, wantwit.
But it was useless, she knew. He wasn’t going to believe her no matter how many times she said it. It was bad enough that he thought her a lightskirt and a lying one at that, but now to realize that he believed her to be capable of betraying her country as well—it was too much. Blotting her hair with the towel, she eyed him thoughtfully.
As long as she had possession of the pistol, he could do her no harm, however angry she might make him. And with that thought in mind, she decided that perhaps she could make him pay, a little, for all he had put her through.
“As you say, I might very well wish to remain a loyal Englishwoman,” she said, moving down to the end of the bunk and draping the damp towel over the board that served as its foot. Naked, still shivering, but deliciously dry now, she reached for the white linen shirt she had found in the saddlebags and pulled it over her head. It was truly enormous, she discovered as she freed her hair from the collar and settled the shirt into position, long enough to reach nearly to her knees and ample enough to wrap around her half a dozen times over. The sleeves were far longer than her arms, and she began rolling them up as she continued. “And, just supposing that I do, mind, you might indeed persuade me to listen to your bargain. But first you must answer my questions: What do you want with the letters? If they are so dangerous to England, who are you that I should give them to you?”
Eyeing his back, she thought she saw a barely perceptible easing in the set of his shoulders, as if his muscles, having been tensed, were now beginning to relax.
“You admit to having them, do you?” If his muscles had relaxed, his voice had not: it was decidedly grimmer than before.
She laughed, a jeering little sound, and sat down on the side of the bunk to pull on the stockings. Like the shirt, they were huge and white, of a thick weave that had her poor frozen toes wiggling in anticipation, and perfectly plain.
“I admit to nothing. But I would know what you intend to do with the letters.” Poking one foot into the soft woolen well she had created, she pulled the first stocking on. It reached past her knee, and was so immediately warming that she gave a little sigh of pleasure. “Are you an agent of the British government, perhaps, sent to retrieve them and bring whoever stole them to justice? Or are you a rogue and a thief yourself, who somehow got wind of them and means to sell them to the highest bidder, should you succeed in laying your hands on them?”
“I am prepared to offer you a great deal of money for them. Say, ten thousand pounds.”
Taken aback by the truly enormous amount, it took Claire a moment to realize that he hadn’t told her anything at all.
“Impressive,” she said, tying a clumsy knot in the stocking just below her knee to hold it in place.
“You would be wise to accept my offer, my girl.” His voice had an ominous note to it now.
She raised her brows at him in exaggerated concern, then grimaced as she realized that she had forgotten once again that he couldn’t see her.
“Why, if I were not the one in possession of the pistol, I might be frightened into revealing all,” she said.
She was almost beginning to enjoy herself, she realized as she pulled on the second stocking. Under the circumstances, baiting him was a pleasure—certainly the most pleasure she’d had on this straight-out-of-hell day.
“Would a greater sum tempt you? Within reason, you may name your own price.”
There was an undertone of contempt to that offer, faint but unmistakable. It reminded her of exactly what he thought her, and it made Claire’s hackles rise.
Glaring at his back, she fumed silently for a moment. Then, in a deliberately provocative tone, she said, “Thank you, but, after all, I think I must decline.”
He slewed around then, so suddenly that she jumped. The chair legs made a harsh grating noise as they scraped over the floor.
With a surprised gasp, Claire dropped the breeches she had just picked up and snatched at the pistol instead, sliding off the bed and leveling the pistol at him in a quick, if slightly less than graceful, series of motions. If, as she suspected, she looked both ridiculous and indecent in the hugely oversized shirt that covered her to her knees and the warm wool stockings knotted below, she cared not. All she cared about was that a weapon stood between them.
“Don’t move,” she ordered in a voice that she was chagrined to hear had turned slightly squeaky.
He was still seated, though the chair was now turned almost all the way around so that he was facing her. One hand was braced against the tabletop and his feet were planted firmly apart in front of him. He looked like he was prepared to leap across the cabin at any second and wrest the pistol from her. His expression reinforced that impression. He was glaring at her, his jaw hard and his mouth compressed into an angry line.
He looked, in a word, menacing. Was this really the man who, moments before, she had decided wouldn’t actually harm her? Now he looked ready, willing, and able to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze the life out of her, she thought, even as her pulse began to race. Though she was warm now—well, relatively warm—her hands, both of which were wrapped around the pistol grip, started to shake. She controlled the quiver just as, she hoped, she controlled the look of alarm that her face had instantly assumed: by a tremendous effort of will.
“If money was not your reason for undertaking this folly, then what was? Someone obviously put you up to it. Who? A lover? Someone besides Archer—someone you were seeing on the side? Someone younger, no doubt. An émigré, perhaps? Are you doing it for him? Who is he?”
Claire glared at him. The man’s single-mindedness was maddening.
“You really cannot expect me to tell you all my secrets,” she said airily.
His eyes flashed. Claire barely prevented herself from stepping back a pace. Thank goodness for the pistol, she thought, tightening her grip on it. It felt reassuringly heavy and solid in her hands.
“Whoever he is, he’s using you.” His voice was grim. His eyes never left her face. “Think, Sophy: If he cared anything for you, would he expose you to such danger? I tell you right now, no man would let a woman he loved risk wh
at you are risking. But you may still save yourself: Tell me where you’ve hidden the letters.”
It was time to have done with the whole idiotic farce, Claire realized, before she provoked him into springing at her, which he looked on the verge of doing. Despite everything, she would really prefer not to have to shoot him. Not that telling him—again!—that he had made a mistake would do any good, of course. He was clearly determined not to believe her, no matter what.
“I have not hidden your letters anywhere,” she said tiredly. “I have never even set eyes on them. As I’ve told you more times than I can count, you’ve made a mistake: I am Lady Claire Lynes, not Miss Towbridge, and not Sophy.”
For a moment he simply stared at her without speaking. Then his eyes turned as hard and dark as cast iron and his mouth grew thinner yet.
“Enough,” he said. The chair scraped over the floor again as he got abruptly to his feet. “My patience is at an end. I’ll play no more of these ridiculous games with you. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell me the truth.”
“Stay where you are.”
Her heart picked up speed until it was pounding in her chest like a runaway’s galloping hooves. Her hands tightened on the pistol grip and her eyes went wide. He was tall and broad and dangerous-looking, his expression wouldn’t have been out of place on the devil himself, and despite her best efforts not to allow him to do so, he was scaring her; harsh purpose seemed to emanate from him in waves.
He laughed, a nasty jeering sound, and came toward her.
“Stop right there,” she warned, panicking, thrusting the pistol toward him as though to ward him off even as she started to back away. “I’ll shoot. I swear I will.”
Dear Lord, he wasn’t going to stop. What was she going to do? Through her own folly, she found herself in the very situation she had most feared.
Her finger curled around the trigger, hesitated. Her breathing quickened. Her palms grew moist.
“Shoot then,” he said, his gaze holding hers, and kept coming, taking slow stalking steps.
Backing up until her legs were pressed hard against the bunk’s wooden frame, left with nowhere to go, Claire pulled back the hammer in a burst of dizzying fear and despair. She would have to shoot him. . . .
In the last second, as he loomed terrifyingly near, instead of aiming for his chest she pointed the pistol down, in the approximate direction of his left knee. Then she gritted her teeth and closed her eyes.
11
In the end, Claire couldn’t do it. She just could not pull the trigger. The idea of blowing a hole through him, even through his knee, made her go all nauseated and light-headed. Or perhaps her stomach-churning reaction to the gory picture that immediately took possession of her mind was at least partly due to the heaving sea—she couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that the thought of his hard male body spurting blood made her feel ill.
A hand clamped over her wrist, and the pistol was wrenched unceremoniously from her grasp.
“No!” Her eyes flew open, her fingers clenched, but her reaction was too late. The pistol was gone. She would have whirled away, out of his reach, but she could not; the bunk was behind her, its edge pressing hard into the backs of her legs, and he was in front of her, scant inches away, blocking her in, the pistol now in his possession. She had to tilt her head far back to meet his eyes. They were gray again, she saw, flinty but no longer black with anger. Still, as she stared up at him her heart raced and her throat went dry—with fear, she assured herself, refusing even to dignify any other possibility. Fear, certainly, was uppermost: The tables had turned again with a vengeance.
“What now, vixen?” he asked, far too pleasantly, echoing the question that was ricocheting through her mind. His hand left her wrist to grip her chin, warm, strong fingers holding her face up for his inspection, and he moved closer yet. He was so near now that her breasts, bare under the flimsy lawn shirt, brushed his chest, the merest butterfly contact. To her horror, she felt her nipples hardening in response. Suddenly she was as shivery inside as she had been on the outside since he had pulled her from the sea. When she moved—a compulsive reaction to such close, unwelcome contact—her bare knee brushed the smooth knit of his breeches, and she was immediately conscious of the hard-muscled leg beneath. She tried to step away, to put more distance between them, but with the bunk at her back and his hand gripping her chin, it was impossible. Frightened and embarrassed and also excruciatingly aware of her wretched body’s hideously inappropriate quickening, she fought to avoid showing any of what she was feeling. To combat her weakness, she balled her suddenly weaponless hands into fists and met him stare for stony stare as he loomed over her like a conquering warrior.
“Get your hands off me.” She was proud of the cool steadiness of her voice.
“You didn’t pull the trigger.” When Claire didn’t reply but only glared at him, his mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. “Careful, if you keep on like this you’ll make me think you fancy me.”
Claire’s eyes narrowed at that. He was making sport of her, she knew, but that remark struck just a little too close to home for her comfort.
“Unlike you, I’ve no taste for violence.”
“Or you’ve enough sense to look out for your own self-interest.” The sardonic element was back in his voice now.
“That, too,” she said, relieved to hear so neat an explanation for her failure to shoot him. If she hadn’t been so befuddled by his nearness, she would have thought of that herself. It was, after all, perfectly true. “As you pointed out earlier, if my choice is between dealing with you and dealing with the ship’s crew, I choose you.”
“Very flattering of you.”
His thumb moved in what felt almost like a caress over the underside of her chin. His gaze slid down to her mouth, where it lingered. Watching him stare at her lips, Claire realized that her pulse was racing again—and this time the reaction had absolutely nothing to do with fear. It struck her that his lean, harsh features were attractive in a way that had nothing to do with mere handsomeness. A way she couldn’t quite describe—or didn’t care to describe, other than acknowledging to herself that it had something to do with the fact that he was so very male. She was burningly aware of his closeness, of her breasts brushing his chest, of her knees brushing his legs. Suddenly she was warm all over, warmer than she had been all night, warmer than she could ever remember being.
“I wouldn’t be too flattered.” It required an effort, but her voice was tart in an attempt to camouflage the effect he was having on her. “That’s rather like choosing between a nest of vipers and a single one. The only difference is the quantity of the poison.”
His eyes rose to meet hers. “Sometimes, in just the right amount and under just the right conditions, poison can have a very beneficial effect on its recipient.”
There was a gleam in the now silvery depths that caused her breathing to falter. It ignited a kind of quickening deep inside her body that both shamed and excited her. She could not, would not, let herself be attracted to him, she thought, horrified to realize that her toes were now curling in their nice warm stockings from a cause far different from cold. But her wayward body wasn’t listening.
Letting her lids drop, she tried to pull her chin from his hold, suddenly panicked at the thought that he might be able to read what she was feeling in her eyes. He already thought her a doxy; she didn’t want to prove it for him.
“Let me go.”
“Not quite yet.”
He was smiling faintly, she saw with a quick upward flicker of her lashes. Had he sensed the effect he was having on her? The thought was unbearably mortifying. Add the notion that his knowledge was responsible for his smile, and her humiliation was complete.
“You dared too much, my girl, and now there’s the piper to pay.” It was no longer even a smile; rather, it was just the faintest curve of his lips. As her gaze touched on that long, chiseled mouth, she found herself wondering how it would feel against her own.
Her heart pounded against her ribs.
“I said let me go!” Horrified at herself, she tried to mentally stamp out the errant images as if they were tongues of flame snaking out from a roaring meadow fire. But it was already too late. Their gazes met. He shook his head at her almost teasingly, and his thumb recommenced its gentle caress of the soft underside of her chin. Claire felt that touch all the way down to her already curling toes. Her lips parted quite unconsciously. His eyes blazed suddenly, and he bent his head.
She panicked as she realized that he meant to kiss her. She was breathing as fast as if she’d been running for miles, and both hands rose, helplessly, to curl around the strong wrist that imprisoned her chin. She tried again to free herself, but the effort was halfhearted at best and he held her fast without effort. Then, with the best will in the world to dodge or fight or scream or something, she found herself paralyzed by her own burgeoning desire. To her horror, she realized that she wanted him to kiss her. She stood perfectly still—except, if she was honest with herself, for a sudden, fierce quivering that she prayed was only internal—as he touched his lips to hers.
Her eyes closed, and she gave a little gasp. His lips were firm and warm, moving over hers with a soft intensity that made her senses go haywire. His tongue stroked her lips, then slid inside her mouth, and the quivering that had started deep in her belly raced like wildfire down her thighs and up to her breasts, causing an aching, pulsing feeling that was like nothing she had ever known. He tasted faintly of brandy, and suddenly she loved the taste. She loved the way his tongue ran over her teeth, the way it filled her mouth before being teasingly withdrawn, the way it stroked her tongue. She loved everything about what he was doing to her.
Irresistible Page 10