She could not break his grip. She spun then to the attack, clawing for his face. Her nails raked across his eyes, and he gave a piercing yell. He brought his fist up in a stunning blow to her chest then, and followed it with another before he sent her flailing across the rim of the tub, skidding in the spilled water, crashing to the floor with him on top of her.
Anguish exploded inside her. It hurt to breathe or to move. Her answer was to curl her own fingers into a hard knot and slam them into his throat. He coughed with a gagging, gurgling sound, but managed to hold her, his hand fastening on her breast and squeezing until her nerves shrieked with the agony of it. He twined the other hand in her hair, pulling, wrenching her head backward on the stem of her neck. She saw behind her tightly closed eyes the first gray mists of merciful blackness.
With gritted teeth she heaved, shifting his weight that lay across her. Immediately she drew herself into a ball and kicked out. In protecting his crotch, he shifted, so both feet sank in his stomach. He doubled, his hold loosening. She dragged herself free, pushing, crawling out of his reach. Her elbow hit the chair, and Morgan’s sword clattered to the floor. She pounced on it, drawing it slithering from the scabbard as she came to her feet.
Valcour, his eyes bloodshot, crazed with pain and distorted lust, shoved to a staggering crouch. He ignored the blade she leveled at him, plunging toward her.
She skipped back, panting. “Keep away. I am not Morgan, and I see no reason, in all honor, not to use this.”
“Use it and be damned,” came his hoarse shout as he lurched, grabbing for the naked blade with his hands.
It was his mistake. She drew back at his first touch, slicing his fingers and palm to the bone, then with rapier level and knee slightly bent, leaned delicately to skewer him in the heart.
It was not her fault that he saw his danger reflected in the midnight darkness of her eyes and straightened, trying to dance aside. Needle-sharp and deadly, the blade slid into his belly at an angle near the stomach and pierced through, emerging red on the other side.
Valcour stared down at the sword impaling him to the hilt, and then he screamed, the sound reverberating around the walls of the cabin.
“By Our Lady, she did it!”
Those words, low, stunned, almost reverent, were Félicité’s first sign that she had an audience. Captain Bonhomme, who had spoken, stood in the doorway, while Morgan, with cutlass in hand, was halfway across the cabin.
The Irishman straightened from his swordsman’s crouch. “Yes,” he said, satisfaction rich in his tone. “She did.”
Félicité dragged her sword free, and swept around to meet the newcomers. Morgan gave her a hard grin. Valcour ceased his screams and fell to his knees with both hands pressed to his side. The captain hesitated, then came slowly forward.
“I make you my compliments, mademoiselle. That was most handily done. There is, however, a prohibition against bloodletting on board this ship. I must ask you to surrender your sword.”
It was pointless to refuse. Félicité bowed with the grace of a fencing master and, reversing the blade, presented her weapon hilt first over her arm.
“Admirable,” Captain Bonhomme said, exchanging what had every appearance of a relieved glance with Morgan.
Valcour broke in then, cursing, demanding care for his wound. Morgan and the French captain picked him up bodily and laid him on a lower bunk. The entrance and exit wounds were plugged with wads of cotton swabbing soaked in rum, then a tight corset of bandaging was bound about his waist. Sometime during this rough-and-ready treatment, Valcour’s oaths and cries stopped as he swooned.
Leaving the patient under the watchful eye of the cabinboy, the two men with Félicité moved out into the companionway.
“Poor Murat,” Captain Bonhomme said. “He does not fare well at the hands of his women. First the dead slave girl, your maid I presume, mademoiselle, doses him with a powerful purgative, and now you have carved a niche in his side.”
“I am not his woman,” Félicité declared.
“I am delighted to hear it. I would hate to think the thing I just witnessed was a gesture of affection. Still, your skill with a rapier is likely to prove an inconvenience.”
“How so?” She flung a quick glance at Morgan, who was watching the two of them with a careful lack of expression.
“Now that he is ensconced in my cabin, he will prove difficult to move. Sharing a cabin with you, ma chère, in addition to Murat and my cabinboy, was not what I had in mind.”
“I was not aware that I was to share your cabin, captain.”
“No? But it is obviously the only solution. You cannot sleep with the men in the forecastle or upon the open deck. Such would be to invite wholesale murder as each fought to claim you, or else a quick and uneasy death for you from overuse. Chafe how you will, you must put yourself under the protection of some man capable of defending the prize.”
“You?” she snapped, her anger caused at least as much by the truth of his statement as by his audacity in settling her fate without consulting her in any way.
“Why not? I am the superior of most on board with a sword, and I am not so ill favored as some.”
“You knew it would come to this when you refused to let me go ashore.” She flung the accusation at him.
“That may be, but I assure you it would have been no different if you had ventured alone into that sinkhole of iniquity of a town. Come, ma petite, be reasonable. Be — resigned, if not happy. You know there is no other choice.”
“But there is.”
The words, deep and etched with challenge, came from Morgan. Félicité and the French captain turned to face him, she in disbelief, he with stiff distress.
The captain spoke first. “What do you mean, mon ami?”
“Just now abovedecks, your men and mine in combination elected me to serve in the vacant post of sailing master, did they not?”
“They did,” the other man admitted grudgingly, “though there were moments, as the tale of your swordsmanship circulated, when it occurred to me you might be their next captain.”
Morgan shook his head. “I think not. You have the reputation of a captain who runs a lucky ship, one who is, besides, pistol-proof. Nevertheless, as an officer second only to you and the quartermaster, it is my right to occupy the cabin beside your own.”
Captain Bonhomme’s face turned a shade darker. “This is true.”
“In that case, Mademoiselle Félicité can share it with me.”
“No,” Félicité cried.
The two men ignored her. The captain’s brown Gallic eyes narrowed. “So it is Félicité, is it? The two of you are known to each other.”
“I won’t do it,” Félicité said.
“Yes,” Morgan answered, his green eyes holding those of the other man. “I know her — well.”
The Frenchman sighed. “I feared as much. It should have been plain to me when you risked your ship to save her from drowning, when she begged me so eloquently to stop Murat’s joyful maiming of you. I suppose you are prepared to defend your — your right of possession.”
“Of course,” Morgan said, the words clipped, uncompromising.
“Of course.” The captain sighed. “I know my limitations. Against the cut and thrust of ordinary swordplay, I am the equal of any, but I have no desire to cross weapons with either a devil incarnate like Murat, or with you, mon ami, who fight as if St. Michael himself, the patron saint of warriors, directs your right hand. She is yours.”
“No! You can’t do this,” Félicité cried.
The French captain turned to her. “It is done, ma petite, for the sake of your comfort and safety, and partially for my continued well-being. Do not repine. One man or the other, what difference does it make? Just as to men all cats are gray in the dark, I have little doubt for woman it is the same.”
Félicité, thinking of Valcour, suppressed a shudder. “You know nothing about it.”
“And I am destined, it seems, to know less. I le
ave you to McCormack while I seek what comfort can be found in a bottle of rum. It is a sovereign remedy, I do swear, for more than one kind of fever.”
Captain Jacques Bonhomme gave them a mocking bow, then stepped back into the cabin they had left, closing the door behind him.
Félicité glanced at Morgan. He lifted a brow, then, moving a few steps down the companionway to the door of the second cabin, pushed it open and waited for her to enter. Félicité raised her chin. There was defiance in her brown eyes as she walked toward him.
Inside the cabin, she turned. “I hope you do not think that because you have arranged matters to suit yourself yet again, everything is going to be the way it was before.”
“Isn’t it?” he inquired, pulling the door to behind him so that the latch snapped with a sharp click.
“No, it isn’t. This may be the best place for me to stay on this ship, but that does not mean that I am going to be your — bedmate as well as your messmate. You compelled me to accept that position once, but you don’t have the means to do it now. My father is dead, and I have nothing more to fear.” A taut quiet hung between them. Into it seeped the knowledge that brave though her words might be, they were false. There was force enough and more in the man before her, in the pliant strength of his swordsman’s body, to compel her if he so chose.
He did not. Leaving her vain challenge unanswered, he said, “I never suggested that I would harm your father.”
“Not in so many words, but the threat was there, the threat that his continued good health depended on my conduct. Deny, if you can, that you took advantage of that dread.”
“I can’t, nor do I intend to. How else could I come near you, after what had passed between us? Out of bloodlust and rage and disappointment that, as I thought, you had led me into a trap, showing yourself to be less the woman I had dreamed and more the treacherous, betraying jade, I forced myself upon you. Could I expect you to forgive me and accept my amends, I the enemy?”
“Why should it matter?” she demanded. “Why should you care what I thought?”
“Oh, come, Félicité! What do you want? Declarations to fling back into my teeth? Never mind, it’s over.”
“It isn’t over, not so long as you are here, arranging my life for me once more.”
One corner of his mouth curved in a dry smile as he put his hands on his hips. “If it bothers you so much, this arranging of your life by men, why did you leave New Orleans? Whatever possessed you to go running like a hare before the hounds into this nest of ocean-bound thieves and murderers?”
“If you really want to know, I will tell you,” she said, and irritated by his amusement, launched into a concise account of Valcour’s promise to take her to France, of their departure from the city with herself in the guise of a young man, the turbulent voyage, and finally the arrival of the ship at Grand Cayman.
“So you wanted to go to France, and wound up instead on the high seas. That must have been a shock.”
“It was, nearly as great a one as discovering you had taken the same path. How does it come about that you followed so quickly?”
“What makes you think I did?”
A frown drew her winged brows together. “I don’t, but it seems stretching coincidence a bit far that you happened to arrive so soon.”
“I suppose it must. All right, I did follow you. There had been information concerning Valcour’s activities, his flirtation with a pirate band, the name of the ship, her captain, her favorite port of call.”
“But isn’t the outfitting of a ship under a pirate flag, the hiring of a crew, and the detailing of a highly valued officer a little extravagant, even for the Spanish, for the apprehending of a traitor’s daughter and adopted son?”
He moved to stand leaning with one shoulder against the bunk. “You missed the point, my dear Félicité. I am no longer a Spanish officer, valued or otherwise.”
She stared at him, unable to believe she had heard aright. “What are you saying?”
“It’s true.”
“But why?”
“Several reasons. To begin with, I was not happy with O’Reilly’s decision to have your countrymen shot. While there was every justification for it, there was also ample justification for leniency. In addition, he and I had words concerning the land grant he had promised. He claimed it was to be awarded only after a year of service in the colony, while I maintained then, and still do, that he implied it would be parceled out immediately after the inhabitants of Louisiana had accepted Spanish rule. The end of the matter was that the governor-general hinted strongly there would be no land grant at all if I did not mend my ways. On top of that, when I requested permission to leave New Orleans, to take ship to find you, my request was denied. My duty, O’Reilly said, was to the army and the crown, not to some French girl who had left me, be she ever so beautiful.”
“So you threw away everything you had worked for, your position as an officer, your hope of advancement, your plans for the future?”
“I did. And with Bast and a few other men of like mind I recruited, I stole a ship and reverted to my old habits.”
“You chose well. The Black Stallion is a beautiful ship,” Félicité said, lowering her lashes. “I am sorry that because of me you had to lose her.”
“You were not, I think, a willing accomplice, not unless your brother has a strange idea of the way his confederates should be treated.”
“That would not be an impossibility,” she answered, her voice stiff, “but no, I was not willing.”
His green eyes held a curious light as he stared at her. “Why not, if you knew I was the captain of the ship, and especially since I had accused you of something similar once before?”
“I prefer my revenge straightforward, and without trickery.” It was as good an excuse as any, since she was uncertain just what exactly had made her so stubborn in her refusal to play the part Valcour had appointed for her.
“I will try,” he said slowly, “to remember that. It should not be hard, especially if I bring to mind the way you stopped Valcour before he got started with his cat. I think that may have had something to do with your — disagreement with him just now.”
“It did,” she answered, her voice shaded with grimness, “though it was not the only one.” She recounted for him the tale of how Valcour had attacked her aboard the Raven, and of how he had been prevented from repeating the experience by Ashanti, of the death of the maid and her brother’s acknowledgment of guilt. Her voice tight, she told also of his attempt to intimidate her, and of the poisonous fancies and memories he had paraded before his final assault. As she spoke it was as if some old injury or neglected wound had been lanced, allowing the suppurating putrescence of years to drain away. With it went something of her bitterness also, and her grief.
There was a dull flush of rage under Morgan’s skin when she finished. His voice was grating as he spoke. “If I had known,” he said, “I would have spitted him like a pig for roasting.”
“I did that myself,” she said.
“So you did,” he answered, and suddenly smiled.
Reluctantly, against her will, Félicité felt her own lips curving upward. Her brown eyes met his emerald gaze, and for a brief instant she felt the constriction around her heart ease. He pushed away from the bunk, stepping toward her, lifting the backs of his fingers to touch the purple shadow that lay along her cheekbone.
“It is getting late,” he said, “and I will warrant this isn’t the only bruise you have after this day’s work. I will admit, too, that I am not as fit as I might be. We might as well go to bed.”
She jerked away from him. “We? I told you how it was going to be, and there has been nothing in what we have said to make me reconsider!”
“A slip of the tongue,” he said, moving his broad shoulders in the hint of a shrug as he let his hand drop. “Don’t upset yourself. I followed you, yes, out of conscience and compassion, and offered you the use of my cabin for the same reasons. But if you will reca
ll, I have not asked you to change your mind. Nor, Félicité, have I asked you to share my bed.”
15
HIS WORDS WERE WELCOME, of course they were, Félicité told herself as she prepared for the night. Taking a rough coverlet from the chest, she spread it over the straw-stuffed bunk mattress with a frown on her face. She had no liking for being regarded as an object of pity; still, why should she complain as long as she was left undisturbed? She could sleep deeply and long for the first time in months. There would be little awkwardness in such confined closeness with Morgan; she and he had seen each other unclothed times without number, and were long past the stage of shrinking modesty. There would be no need to worry overmuch tonight about the bundle left behind this time in the captain’s cabin.
While Morgan sat down to pull off his boots, Félicité stripped her shirt from her breeches and, crossing her arms, drew it off over her head. Naked to the waist, with her golden-blond hair swirling around her, now concealing, now revealing her firm breasts, she kicked off her shoes and began to unbutton her breeches. Becoming aware of Morgan’s stillness, she looked up. He hastily dropped the boot he held suspended. Lowering his gaze, he bent to tug at the other.
The frown faded from her eyes, to be replaced by a considering expression. Perhaps Morgan was not so indifferent to her as he wanted to appear. It might have been male pride or some form of recompense for past sins that had made him deny his interest. Such a thing could be put to the test.
Turning her back, Félicité began with slow care to slip her breeches downward. The firm, slender curves of her hips were uncovered inch by inch, undulating gently as she swayed with the rise and fall of the ship. With one hand braced on the bulkhead wall to support herself, she eased the breeches from one finely turned calf and ankle, then swung half around, clinging with the other hand, to repeat the process. Completely nude, she straightened, flinging back her hair as she shook out her breeches and hung them with her shirt from a hook at the end of the bunk. Morgan’s second boot crashed against the wall. He came to his feet with a rush, flung open the cabin door, and bellowed down the companionway, calling for the cabinboy to bring a hot bath.
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