The Piratical Miss Ravenhurst

by Louise Allen

  ‘Did you go to receptions at the King’s House?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Clemence spread butter on a crust with a lavish hand. ‘Goodness, I’m so hungry—it must be the sea air.’ She tucked a lock of hair back behind her ear and waved the crust for emphasis. ‘I don’t know about England, but here virtually the entire white population is on visiting terms and is invited to receptions by the Governor.

  ‘Society is so small that the social divisions almost disappear. Visiting ladies always say that balls and routs are complete romps and turn up their noses at us when they find themselves sitting next to an attorney or a shopkeeper at a dinner party, but it would be ridiculous if society were confined to a handful of leading planters and the richest merchants.’

  ‘So, no young man to deliver you back to,’ Nathan mused, realising he was not finding that thought displeasing.

  ‘It is a trifle premature to think about getting back safe to Kingston, is it not?’ Clemence asked.

  ‘Perhaps. I like to plan ahead. What’s your surname, Clemence?’ he asked, realising that she had never told him. Now why not?

  ‘Browne.’ The response was so quick, he should not have been suspicious, but there was something about the way she held his eyes, as though daring him to challenge her, that told him she was lying. No, she did not trust him, not wholly. Sensible woman.

  He nodded and she leaned against a rock, apparently sated, and tipped her face up to the sun. The shaggy hair fell back, giving Nathan a clear sight of her face. The swelling had gone down, the bruises were turning yellow. Soon the disfigurement would be gone, any lingering traces disguised by a healthy tan. How easy would it be to hide the fact that she was a girl when that happened?

  Two days to survive before this all came to a head. Nathan shifted uncomfortably. Lying around felt wrong, even though there was nothing he could do now. He had gone into this deception knowing there was a good chance he would not come out of it. At the time, the gains had seemed worth the risk and he had always been ready to play the odds, especially when he did not much care about his own skin. Now he was responsible for Clemence and there was no one he could rely on to protect her if the worst happened. He had to stay alive—which might not be something he had much control over.

  Although there were the men in the hold. Would they be in any condition to fight if he could free them? It would shorten the odds, although the timing would be critical.

  ‘You look grim,’ Clemence observed, head on one side. ‘And tired. Are you sleeping at night?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sleeping.’ And dreaming. His dreams seemed to be full of smoke and blood and the rattle of that disgusting bundle of rotting bones at the masthead. He woke every time feeling as though he’d just fought a ship action. It was curiously pleasant to have someone to worry about him.

  ‘Good.’ Clemence closed her eyes again and he sat and watched while she dropped off. Her mouth opened a little, her breath came in foolish whiffles and her long limbs relaxed into an endearing, graceful sprawl. Nathan wanted to crawl over, put his head in her lap and sleep, too, perhaps to wake and find she was stroking his hair. Instead, he sat up and thought, long and hard.

  Clemence woke, feeling warm and relaxed and safe. Her eyes were closed, but she could feel Nathan watching her, those deep blue eyes resting on her face. Why did she have to meet him when she was looking absolutely at her worst? Hair hacked off, face black and blue, what small curves she had ruthlessly suppressed, nothing but a scruffy urchin.

  He had kissed her twice, and had managed to restrain his passionate impulses very effectively. What would he think of her if he could see her all dressed up, her hair grown again, her bruises gone? Nothing, probably, just that here was another young lady. And if Miss Clemence Ravenhurst met Mr Nathan Stanier on Jamaica, she assumed he’d be in shackles and on his way to the gallows and in no state to flirt.

  On that disturbing thought she opened her eyes wide. Nathan smiled at her sleepily. Whatever happened, she had to make sure he did not get caught if, by some miracle, they got safe back to Kingston. He probably had some gallant notion of delivering her to the Governor; she would have to stop that. He might think he was looking after her, but she suspected it might work both ways.

  ‘I think I can swim now without sinking,’ she announced, gathering up the remains of the food.

  ‘How long has it been since you have swum?’ he asked, stopping to help her down the steep part again.

  ‘Just before my father died,’ she confessed, amused to see that he looked faintly shocked and, perhaps, intrigued. ‘There are lots of bathing pools on the island and many ladies swim. You have to be careful around the swamps, of course, because of the unhealthy airs, but the fast-flowing streams are safe.’

  A little frisson ran through her. Nathan was studiously not commenting, which meant, perhaps, that his imagination was running riot, a fact that ought to embarrass her, but did not. It seemed that being kidnapped by pirates resulted in a deplorable lowering of one’s sensibilities.

  ‘Ladies swim in England, don’t they?’ she asked. ‘In the sea, at any rate. I’ve heard about bathing machines.’

  Nathan gave a snort of laughter. ‘Yes, they swim—or at least, immerse themselves in the sea. They wear strange flannel bathing dresses and are guarded by fierce women with arms like blacksmiths whose job is to dunk them right under.’

  ‘What on earth for? It sounds horrible.’ And wet flannel. Ugh. The joy of swimming was to be naked, to feel the water slide like silk over your limbs, to hang, suspended like a bird, weightless.

  ‘Because one does not swim for pleasure in England, one does it for one’s health.’

  ‘I’m sure the men don’t put on strange flannel garments and submit to being dunked,’ Clemence retorted. ‘I’m sure you swim naked where you want to and it is up to the ladies to keep out of the way.’

  Was it her imagination or was the back of Nathan’s neck becoming flushed? It was probably just the heat—surely she wasn’t embarrassing him? As they reached the pool, he turned aside. ‘I’ll sit here on this log and keep an eye on the path up from the cove,’ he said, to her ears sounding somehow constrained as he stood with his back to her and the water. ‘There are towels in my pack.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Touched by his thoughtfulness Clemence reached out, then pulled her hand back. He might misinterpret her action and imagine she wanted…something. She caught herself up, turned her hand towards the satchel and pulled out a thin linen towel. He would be correct—she did want him and he was being gentlemanly about his needs, so provocation was not the action of a lady.

  She looked down at her filthy feet as she heeled off her shoes and chuckled. Those weren’t the feet of a lady, either, or the hands. The sight of her masculine attire draped on the bushes would doubtless give her unknown Aunt Amelia in London hysterics, and as for the tale of what had happened in the last few months—well, she couldn’t imagine beginning to try to explain that to a well-bred society lady.

  The water was cool to a cautious toe. Clemence sat on a rock and slipped in before she could think about it, vanishing straight down into the depths. She surfaced with a strangled shriek.

  ‘Clemence! Are you all right?’ She pushed the dripping hair back from her face with both hands and hung there, treading water and looking up. Nathan, knife in hand, was poised on the brink of the pool above her.

  ‘Yes, sorry I startled you. I’m fine, but it is deep and cold and I jumped right in.’ After that first searching look, he was now staring firmly ahead into the bushes on the far side. Clemence glanced down at herself. Here in the shade all she could see though the greenish water was the pale shimmer of her body. Possibly, from above, she was rather more revealed, but that was all the more reason for them both to be on the same level.

  ‘Why don’t you swim, too? It is so refreshing once you are in.’

  ‘Is it deep right across?’ he asked, still not looking down.

  ‘Yes, very. We could stay back to back,
that would be perfectly proper,’ she coaxed. And cold water was very dampening to male passion, she had heard, so he would not have to exert any will-power. Making that as an additional argument might not be a good idea, so she contented herself with paddling off under an overhanging fern to allow him to undress in privacy.

  ‘Close your eyes.’ Clemence squeezed them shut, then opened them just a crack in time to see Nathan’s naked body slice through the surface in a shallow dive.

  He surfaced, hair otter-sleek to his head. ‘It’s freezing, woman!’ But he was grinning as he sent a great splash of water towards her with a sweep of his arm. So much for modestly swimming back to back.

  Clemence ducked and swam underwater across the pool, glimpsing the pale length of his body through the green haze, then popped up behind him. ‘Not if you move about,’ she called, turning on to her back and kicking up a shower of spray to cascade on to his head. Nathan dived like a dolphin, arching up, leaving her with a startling image of fluid body, taut buttocks and long legs, then the surface of the pool was empty except for her and the spreading rings of ripples.

  ‘Nathan?’ she queried foolishly into the sudden silence, as something seized her ankles and she was pulled down by ruthless hands. Clemence shut her mouth just in time, kicked and they released her, only to fasten on her waist and propel her up, breaking the surface and tossing her into the air.

  She landed with a huge splash, flailing and laughing and spouting water. ‘Wretch!’

  ‘That’s for luring me into your freezing pool.’ He swam lazily towards the little waterfall and levered himself up on braced forearms, twisting to sit on a concealed ledge just under the surface, the cascade breaking over his head and shoulders so he was almost lost in foam. He looked, Clemence thought, like a water god waiting to surprise travellers or perhaps to pounce lustfully on a passing nymph.

  She was the nearest thing to a nymph available, she speculated, paddling gently on the spot, watching Nathan who, with closed eyes, was luxuriating in the pounding massage of the water on his shoulders. There was a clump of lily-like blooms growing beside her sheltering fern, the flower trumpets a rich amber yellow with nodding dark-brown stamens. Clemence reached up and broke one off, then tucked it behind her ear.

  With her bruised face she would look ridiculous, she was quite certain, but it might make Nathan smile; somehow, his pleasure had become important to her. She swam slowly out into the middle of the pool and waited for him to open his eyes. When he did, he just stared. Her heart sank; he was not amused, merely baffled by her behaviour.

  ‘Clemence,’ he managed after a long minute, probably at a loss for anything nice to say.

  ‘I know, I look an idiot, I was just thinking you look like a water god and you ought to have a nymph and I was trying to appear more nymph-like because I thought that would amuse you, but obviously I don’t and you aren’t…’ She was babbling. Slowly her voice trailed away, the heat of her blushes burning her cheeks.

  Nathan simply slid into the water and took two long over-arm strokes to reach her. He put one hand either side of her waist, Clemence lifted her hands to his shoulders and they hung together in the green water, a foot apart, staring into each other’s eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘That’s what you are, a water spirit with your big green eyes and those fey looks and your long, graceful limbs made for slipping through clear water.’

  ‘Me?’ The word came out on a gasp. He was so close she could feel his body heat through the water. She could see down below the surface, down to the dark hair on his chest, narrowing to where she dared not let her gaze follow. Under her palms she could feel the bunch and flex of muscles as he trod water, supporting her, and the ripples their floating bodies made washed against her skin like the touch of a thousand caressing fingers.

  ‘Yes, you,’ Nathan said. He did not seem to have the same inhibitions about looking down through the water as she had. ‘And I can’t recall who you said likened your figure to a kipper, but all I can say is, they have been eating some very odd fish.’

  ‘I’m flat…’

  ‘You shouldn’t listen to other people.’

  ‘Just to you?’

  ‘Yes, I know what I’m talking about. You have curves in all the right places, Clemence.’ His hands slid down to her hips and then back to her waist.

  ‘But—’ She stared down at her chest, biting her lip. Their bodies glimmered pale as ivory through the greenish water as though seen through thick old glass. Oddly, there did seem to be rather more bosom than she had possessed when she’d fled Raven’s Hold.

  ‘And you have the loveliest breasts. Perfect.’ Before she could flutter her feet and propel herself away, his right hand came up, cupped, just below her left breast. He did not touch her, yet the upward pressure on the water seemed to support the flesh, caress it. The nipple stiffened betrayingly. ‘Perfect,’ Nathan repeated. Then he was swimming away from her to the bank.

  Confused, delighted, aroused and painfully shy, Clemence turned, thankful for the cool water against her hot cheeks as she heard Nathan splashing as he got out of the pool behind her.

  There were the sounds of him moving away, then she sensed she was alone. Perfect? He thought her body was perfect? It must be a long time indeed since he had lain with a woman if that was what he thought, Clemence told herself. On the other hand, men did seem to be able to get physically excited by anything female, which was very odd of them.

  Take Cousin Lewis, for example, she mused, as she climbed out of the water and reached for the towel. He had made it very clear he thought her unattractive and yet he was also supremely confident that he could have sex with her and leave her with child, even though he had a beautiful and passionate mistress under the same roof.

  She towelled herself, then wrapped the linen strips tight around her breasts again. She was beginning to hate the hot restrictive feeling, so much worse than the carefully structured support of light stays. But Nathan was right; for some reason, perhaps the food and fresh air and exercise, her small curves were coming back and she could not risk discovery for the sake of comfort.

  ‘Are you decent?’ He sounded as detached as if they had just been for a country walk with a chaperon, not swimming naked in a tropical pool.

  ‘Perfectly,’ Clemence assured him, managing to sound equally genteel. ‘I wish I’d brought a comb, though.’

  ‘Here.’ Nathan produced a battered bone comb from the depths of a waistcoat pocket, eyeing her critically as she raked it through her hair.

  Clemence shook her head to produce a tousled look and squinted at him through her damp fringe. ‘My hair was my only beauty; I used to be able to comb it out almost down to my waist. Cutting it off hurt, but at the time I’d have shaved my head if it got me out of there.’

  ‘Is that what they told you? That your hair was your only beauty?’ Nathan shook his head. ‘Obviously big green eyes like forest pools are two a penny on Jamaica. Come on, nymph, or the captain will have us holystoning the decks as punishment for being late back.’

  Clemence found she was grinning foolishly as she followed Nathan’s wide shoulders down the path. He thought her eyes were beautiful, he thought her figure was beautiful, he thought…She let herself slip into a daydream where her hair had miraculously grown again and Nathan was no navy renegade turned pirate, but instead appeared in elegant full-dress naval uniform to claim her hand, rescued her from the Naismiths, swept her off to his bedchamber…

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Um?’

  He was looking back over his shoulder at her. ‘You sighed.’

  ‘Oh. I suppose I’m tired, a little. Don’t take any notice.’

  Because I certainly cannot! Miracles do not happen, dreams do not come true and reality is just that. Real.

  As she thought it, they came out of the trees and there, before them, was the hidden harbour, the Sea Scorpion in its lair at the centre. Quiet, malevolent and deadly. Clemence stared, all her sensua
l daydreams shrivelling like a love letter thrown on to hot coals. Here was her reality.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Well?’ McTiernan was there as they climbed the ladder up to the main deck. Clemence clenched her hands on the wooden rungs, her head just below the soles of Nathan’s shoes as the cold voice sliced away what remained of the warm glow inside her. ‘What did you see?’

  Nathan finished his climb, swung his leg over the side and dropped to the deck before he answered, turning away with McTiernan and leaving her to scramble up unaided and mercifully unregarded.

  ‘The frigate’s still there, helping the merchantman with its rigging. It’s got no boats out, they haven’t swung their cutter over to go exploring. My guess is that they think we’re long gone.’ Nathan produced his notebook, opening it up to show something to the captain.

  ‘Those two islets? Yes, what about them?’

  ‘From up high you can see there’s a shallow sand-bar between them, but you can’t detect it on the surface and the Admiralty charts don’t show it, either. No rocks or coral heads and there’s deep water either side. If we can get our angle of attack right, we ought to be able to drive a ship on to that and board it at our leisure. No need to pound it to bits and you can kedge it off again undamaged when you are ready.’

  ‘Show me on the chart.’ Clemence went and leaned on the mast on the far side, pretending to pick her teeth with a wood splinter. ‘Aye…’ McTiernan was nodding, she could see his shadow ‘…now that’s a nice, tidy scheme, Mr Stanier.’

  ‘I suggest you get skiffs out, harry the ship from both sides to drive it, otherwise there’s too much sea for it to escape into,’ Nathan continued.

  Sick, Clemence pushed away from the mast and went to the galley which seemed, just now, like sanctuary. And she had started to believe that Nathan was a good man at heart, that he might be on the side of the angels—even if only for the thought of the reward.