Never Trust a Pirate

by Valerie Bowman

  She found an assortment of books on a shelf on a far wall, a collection of philosophy, history, science, and nautical topics. She hadn’t figured Cade for a scholar. If he’d read even a quarter of the books here, he’d be considered well-read, surprising for someone who’d been raised in Seven Dials.

  She, too, had always tried to educate herself by reading, but there were several volumes here she hadn’t read before. Shucking her boots and stockings, she plucked a copy of The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey off the shelf and padded over to the giant bed. She slid onto the jade-colored satin sheets and luxuriated in the feel of them beneath her feet. The mattress was soft and fluffy, filled with down. She glanced over.

  One pillow didn’t match the others. It was covered in white linen as opposed to green satin. There was something familiar about it. She crawled across the sprawling bed and pulled the pillow into her lap. It looked much like the one she’d used at Lady Daphne’s house. She put it to her nose and sniffed. Her orchid perfume.

  Could it be? Was it possible Cade had taken the pillow from her bedchamber? He had been in her bedchamber the last time she’d seen him, after all. But why had he taken it? To remember her by? Contemplating the enormity of that thought, she snuggled into the sheets and laid her head on the pillow. Her yawn was so big her ears popped. The fact that she hadn’t slept all night, combined with the gentle rocking of the ship and the supreme comfort of the bed conspired to lull her to sleep.

  The next thing Danielle knew, she was awakened by a husky male voice near her ear. “In my bed, I see. Does that mean you’ve decided to take me up on my offer?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Danielle’s eyes flew open and she scrambled up, her back against the luxurious pillows, instinctively pulling the covers to her chin even though she was still fully dressed. “Wha-what?”

  Cade stood over the bed, his hands on his hips, laughing. “Sorry to wake you so suddenly. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Danielle rubbed the sleep from her eyes and glanced around. It was dark outside the windows and only moonlight and the brace of candles sitting on the desk illuminated the room.

  Had she truly slept all day? “What time is it?”

  Eight bells sounded. “It’s the dog watch,” Cade said with a grin.

  “Eight o’clock,” she whispered.

  “No,” he replied, still grinning.

  “Surely it’s not twelve?” Her eyes went wide.

  His brows rose. “You know time on a ship?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I already informed you that I know quite a lot about ships.”

  “You did.” His grin was positively wolfish. “And yes, it’s twelve.”

  “I can’t believe I slept all day,” she said.

  “Well, we didn’t exactly get much sleep last night.”

  She eyed him warily. “Don’t say it like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like we … spent the night together.”

  “Didn’t we?”

  “No! Not like that. You know we didn’t.”

  “Ah, that’s right. You only told me you wished it had been like that. Right before you took off to stow aboard my ship.”

  She scrambled off the bed and stood next to it, sheepishly, her feet bare and her hair, which had come free of the cap, streaming over her shoulders.

  “You look absolutely nothing like a boy right now, by the by,” he informed her. “What do you think would happen to you if you were in the bunks with the others?”

  “If I were a cook’s assistant I wouldn’t have been asleep. I’d have been working.”

  “A convenient answer.”

  “A truthful one.”

  He sat on the far edge of the bed and began shucking off his boots. “Would you like to help?” he asked. “I seem to remember you have some experience in this quarter.”

  “You’re endlessly amusing,” she shot back.

  Ignoring that, he stood and began to take off his shirt, unbuttoning it and pulling it over one shoulder.

  Her eyes flared. “What are you doing?”

  His grin was wicked. “Undressing. Care to help?”

  “No!”

  “You’re not a particularly helpful cabin boy.”

  She smirked at him. “About that. I thought you said you didn’t need a valet, yet you have a cabin boy?”

  “A cabin boy is entirely different from a valet,” Cade replied.

  “How so?”

  “Less picky. Less exacting. Someone you can yell at to bloody well get out and leave you alone when you choose.”

  “You have an answer for everything.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Of course I do. At any rate, unlike you, I don’t sleep fully dressed and don’t intend to begin now to accommodate you.”

  When he began to unbutton his breeches, Danielle spun around and crossed her arms over her chest, facing away from him. She waited a few minutes, trying not to imagine him undressed. “Finished?” She hated the fact that her voice shook.

  “Not until I’m nude,” he replied in far too jovial of a tone.

  Her mouth fell open. And went dry. “Am I to understand that you—” She snapped her mouth shut again as his breeches came flying past her shoulder to land in a heap on the wood planks in front of her.

  “You’ll see to those, won’t you, boy?”

  Danielle gritted her teeth. “Yes, Cap’n.” She grabbed the breeches from the floor, still facing away from him, and spent an inordinate amount of time shaking them out and folding them. They smelled like him, spicy cologne and a hint of soap. Nom de dieu. Why did they have to smell like him? If they didn’t, she’d have a much easier time ignoring the fact that the man who owned them and had recently occupied them was standing five paces behind her completely naked.

  “Are you decent?” she finally asked in a much sharper voice than she’d meant to.

  “I’m never decent,” came his laughter-tinged reply. “I thought you knew that about me.”

  She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I meant are you clothed?”

  “No,” came the succinct reply.

  “No?” she echoed. Before she had a chance to inquire as to whether he meant to stand there unclothed all night, he continued, “I sleep in the nude.”

  “You sleep in the—?” A string of French curse words flew through her head.

  “However, I am covered, if that’s what you’re worried about, though I can uncover myself again if you’d like.”

  That was it. She was through playing word games with him. She’d seen a lot on ships. A naked man wasn’t about to intimidate her. She would call his bluff. She spun on her heel to face the bed again. He was in it, covered by the sheets from the waist down. From the waist up, however, the man was fully, gloriously undressed. The bare expanse of his chest was on display. His muscled arms were crossed behind his head and he had a roguish grin on his face.

  Danielle had seen her fair share of male chests before. Working on ships, she’d been careful to keep herself covered, but she’d seen and heard it all. Every inch of the male anatomy and every word they used to describe their … parts. And there were a great many words, to be sure. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for the sight of Cade Cavendish’s bare chest. Broad, muscled, ripped, hairless. She longed to run her fingers across the smooth expanse of skin. Her mouth watered. She pressed her lips together and forced herself to drag her eyes away from his chest and meet his gaze.

  “Care to join me?” He patted the empty space next to him.

  She ignored the invitation, instead marching past the bed to open the wardrobe and carefully set the breeches inside. She located his discarded shirt and shook it out before hanging it in the wardrobe, too. Next, she gathered his boots and made her way to the cabinet where she’d located the polishing items earlier. She set about dusting the boots with a horsehair brush.

  The entire time he watched her with an unabashed grin on his face. “Hmm. Seems you
do know the duties of a good cabin boy.”

  She forced herself to bite back the I-told-you-so on her lips. Finally, she finished her ministrations and faced him again. “Where does—did—Martin sleep?”

  “In here.”

  “Where?” she bit out. He wasn’t about to make this any easier for her, was he?

  “If you’re asking where you should sleep, may I suggest the bed?” He blinked at her innocently and patted the empty space next to him.

  “Will you be in the bed if I sleep there?”

  “Of course I will. It’s my bed.” His grin was unrepentant. “It’s far more comfortable than where Martin slept, however.”

  She tapped her booted foot on the ground. “Which was?”

  Cade sighed and pointed. “On a pallet on the floor in the corner.”

  She hadn’t seen a pallet during her earlier explorations. “Where is it?”

  “Look, Danielle, I won’t touch you. I promise. No one needs to know we share this bed. I can’t stand to think of you sleeping on the floor.”

  “Where’s the pallet?” she asked calmly.

  He sighed again. “In the cabinet near the bookshelf.”

  She marched over to the cabinet, opened it, and knelt down to pull out the pallet. It consisted of a small pad filled with old hay by the smell of it, and a rough woolen blanket. No pillow. She wrangled it out of the cabinet and spread it on the floor nearby. It was perfectly acceptable. She’d slept on worse. Many times.

  Cade got up to blow out the candles. She turned her head to the wall and concentrated on trying to get comfortable on the pallet. A pillow, the one she’d used at Lady Daphne’s house, came sailing through the air and landed near her. The man was a good shot. She smiled and pulled the pillow close, snuggling her head upon it. It was nice to have this one memory of her time at Lady Daphne’s. She wondered how much Mary and Mrs. Huckleberry hated her now, and what Lady Daphne thought. She hoped the poor woman didn’t think her brother-in-law and her maid had run off together. Only they had. Sort of. Mon dieu, it was complicated. She’d think about it tomorrow.

  The last words she heard before she fell asleep were, “Good night, Cross. If you change your mind, the bed remains available.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Danielle woke the next morning to the smell of sea air and … an aching back. Not just an aching back—an excruciatingly aching back. It had been a long while since she’d slept on the floor. How long had it been? She’d got her sea legs back so quickly. She’d assumed all the other aspects of life aboard a ship would come back to her immediately. She sat up, braced her hands behind her on the planks, and groaned. Sunlight streamed through the windows. She glanced over at the bed. Cade was gone and his bed was neat as a pin.

  She made her way slowly to her feet, groaning again as she stood. The pallet was even thinner than she’d thought. She stretched and rubbed the small of her back. Then she raised her arms to the sky. First things first. She needed to answer the call of nature.

  She tiptoed—she didn’t know why she tiptoed—over to the washbasin and peered down into the chamber pot. Empty. She breathed a sigh of relief. Merci dieu for small favors. At least Cade didn’t expect her to perform that odious part of the job of cabin boy. She did her business quickly, hoping against hope that Cade didn’t return while she was in the middle of it.

  Thankfully, she was left alone and when she finished she was left with the chamber pot filled with the contents of her bladder. She tiptoed to the window, careful not to splash. She couldn’t toss it out because the side of the ship jutted out too far. Maudit. She’d have to find another place to dispose of it. She closed her eyes. Why did she have a feeling this was going to end in nothing but embarrassment?

  Ensuring her hair was properly tucked into her hat, she tentatively opened the door to the captain’s cabin and peered out. No one there. She managed to climb the stairs to the quarterdeck without spilling on herself. Well done, Cross!

  She scurried across the deck to the lee side, the wind at her back. She’d just finished tossing the lot into the water when a voice startled her.

  “Cross, there ye be.” O’Malley’s jovial voice rang across the deck. “How did ye manage to get a demotion in the span o’ one night’s time?” The man laughed.

  Still clutching the chamber pot, Danielle turned to face the second mate and lifted her chin. She was prepared for this question. Had been planning for it all night. “The cap’n decided he didn’t believe me credentials as a cook’s assistant.”

  O’Malley laughed again and slapped his thigh. “Ye can’t be no worse than Martin. Boy don’t know a spoon from a fork.”

  Danielle shrugged. “I don’t much care what I do as long as I’m out o’ London.”

  O’Malley laughed more and clapped her on the back. “I hear that, lad. I hear that.”

  Danielle was still clutching the thankfully empty chamber pot minutes later when Cade’s booming voice rang out. “Cross! What are you doing there?”

  She jumped and turned, clutching the pot to her middle. Cade strode toward them.

  “I hope I don’t have ta explain, sir.” She glanced down at the pot.

  She could tell he was fighting a smile. “I see. Are you finished?”

  If she were a blusher, now would be an excellent time to blush. “Aye, Cap’n,” she managed.

  “Then get back to the cabin.”

  Danielle ground her teeth. To defy a direct order from the captain was a whipping offense on a ship.

  He must have seen the hesitation in her eyes because he gave her an intimidating stare and put his hands on his hips. “Thinking about disobeying me, Cross?”

  She choked down the sassy reply that was on her lips. “Never, Cap’n.”

  * * *

  By the time Cade returned to the cabin hours later, Danielle was fuming. She was also nearly starving. She had inventoried the entire contents of the large room, inspected all of Cade’s clothing, studied every square inch of the torn map, and washed the blasted chamber pot until it shone. When he waltzed into the room, she nearly threw it at his too-handsome head.

  “How dare you order me down here and leave me to rot?” she demanded, setting the pot back in the cabinet so forcefully it nearly cracked.

  He lifted a brow in a questioning manner. “I’m trying to keep you safe. What else do you think you should be doing?”

  “Being the cook’s assistant!”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Weren’t you the one who told me you can’t cook a thing?”

  She plunked her hands on her hips. “Yes, but you’re not supposed to know that.”

  “That’s a ridiculous excuse.”

  “At least I could be learning a new trade.”

  “To cook? Are you serious?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Cade strode over and stood in front of her, trailing his finger along her arm. “If you’re bored, I have a suggestion for what we could do to pass the time.”

  A thrill shot through her belly, but she forced herself to look away. He was too tempting. “What would that accomplish?”

  “Accomplish? If I have to explain it to you…” He sighed. “The point is that it’s fun. It’s a much better time than cleaning chamber pots.”

  “Confident, are you?”

  “Exceedingly. Besides, you were interested the other night. What’s changed?”

  She took several steps away from him so she could think better. There was a very good reason why they couldn’t have “fun” and she needed to remember it. “It’s obvious Grimaldi wants us to work together.”

  “And?”

  “And if we sleep together that will complicate everything.”

  “I haven’t agreed to work with you or Grimaldi,” Cade replied. “Even if I did, it would still be fun.”

  Mon dieu. The man personified the word incorrigible. Was he seriously arguing with her about this? “I’ve little doubt, but having fun is not always the most impo
rtant thing.”

  “You’ve little doubt? Oh, sweetheart, you just sealed your fate.”

  She scowled at him. “What does that mean?”

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “Captain, I have your dinner,” Martin’s voice announced through the wood.

  The smile faded from Cade’s face. He strode over to open the door. Martin marched in. He was a medium-sized boy with dark brown hair and dark eyes and a pair of silver spectacles rested on his cheeks. He looked intelligent and seemed pleasant. He had a towel over his arm and a platter balanced in his hand. He eyed Danielle carefully while he set about efficiently preparing the place for Cade at the dining table in the center of the room. The smell of the meal nearly sent Danielle to her knees.

  “How are you enjoying your new position?” Cade asked him.

  “I’m happy to learn something new, Captain,” the boy replied, looking perfectly pleased.

  Maudit. Martin was apparently content with his new role. If that were true, he wouldn’t prove an ally in switching back. She’d been planning to speak with him and ask him to try to convince Cade he’d made a mistake.

  “Glad to hear it,” Cade replied.

  Martin glanced at Danielle again, obviously interested in the person who’d replaced him.

  “Anything else, Captain?” Martin asked.

  “Yes, Martin. Will you please bring a meal for Cross here as well?”

  Danielle started. “I can eat in the galley with—”

  “No. You can’t,” Cade said calmly but firmly. “Martin, another plate, if you please.”

  “Right away, Captain.” The boy bowed and hurried away back to the galley.

  As soon as Martin had quit the room, Danielle turned on Cade. “Are you mad? Now they’ll all think—”

  “They’ll all think something preferable to discovering you’re a beautiful woman.”

  That knocked the anger out of her. She couldn’t help it. “Beautiful?”

  The shadow of a frown crossed his face. “Quite beautiful.”

  She snapped her mouth shut. She couldn’t stay angry with him after he’d called her beautiful and added a “quite” to it. She was seriously trying and having no luck. Not to mention she was famished. Perhaps eating in the captain’s cabin would be preferable to scrounging for seconds in the galley with the rest of the crew. She took a seat across from him and waited patiently until Martin returned with her plate. Danielle pulled the cover from the meal and stared down at white fish, green beans, and fried apples. It smelled heavenly. Her stomach growled like the traitor it apparently was. She snatched up her fork and took the first delicious bite. The food on The Elenor was a sight better than on most of the ships she’d worked. Probably best that she wasn’t in the galley to make it worse, but she’d hang from the mast before she admitted that to Cade.