“Stop!” she cried. The cold was numbing. It made her want to die. “Stop, you’re hurting me. I can’t make it. Go on!”
“I’ll hurt you like you can’t imagine if you don’t stop fighting me!” he swore. His fingers were grasping her, biting cruelly into her. They laced through her hair, and he was swimming hard again. She ceased trying to fight him. The rain was all around her, as gray as the sky, as dark as the sea. There was no difference between them. Sky and rain and sea were one, and they were imprisoned by them all.
“There. Hold on!” the Hawk demanded.
She didn’t know if she held on or not. The darkness encompassed her. She went limp. She sank beneath the waves. The shore was just ahead of them. She saw that. Then the world was dark.
She came to moments later because she was flat in the sand, and he was straddled over her, his mouth on hers, forcing air into her lungs. She gasped, and breathed on her own. Her eyes flew open.
“We’re alive!” she cried.
“We’re alive,” he said simply. He crashed down beside her. She realized that she could no longer feel the rain. He had brought them into the shelter of a small cove with overhanging rock and ledge.
She could think no more that night. She closed her eyes, and slept.
The sun, hot and beautiful upon her damp body, awoke her. Skye rolled, dazed, to her side. She looked about, and she saw the Hawk. He was still out, sprawled not ten feet away from her. Desperately pleased to see him with her and alive, she crawled the distance to him. If he slept, she could dare to wake him with a tender kiss. This morning, she could not feel guilt or shame.
Yet before she could touch him, she paused. A frown furrowed her brow as she stared down at his face.
Half of his beard had been sheared away. His mustache, too. Bits and pieces of hair clung to his flesh in a very odd manner.
She reached out and touched the hair. It came away in her grasp. It was fake. His beard was fake. He was really clean shaven. And with the beard gone to display the contours and angles of his face, he looked even more like Petroc Cameron. In fact, he looked exactly like Petroc Cameron.
She stared at him, and the truth slowly, slowly dawned upon her. She stood, forgetting their wild fight for life and death,forgetting everything as rage seared into her heart, blinding her to the entire world.
“Bastard!” she shrieked, and she awoke him not with a kiss, but with a wild and savage kick to the midsection.
XVI
“Despicable bastard! Scurvy knave. Worse than a sea slime, worse than the densest pile of—of rat dung! You should be sliced to ribbons, disemboweled! Skinned alive, inch by scurvy inch!”
He was dreaming, Roc thought. The storm and the roiling waves were all about him still and he was dreaming that some Harpy had come flapping around above him to torture him awake.
No … he was not dreaming.
It was Skye.
She was railing against him, hollering like a shrew, and tugging upon him, too. His sword … she was stealing his sword from his sodden leather scabbard!
Reeling from the pain in his gut, straining to come awake and to terms with the morning, Roc realized slowly that it was indeed Skye, she was standing over him, her left hand upon her hip, her right hand brandishing his sword, and a bit too close to his extremities, at that. Her eyes flashed like sapphires in the sun, she was as tense as steel. She stood disheveled, her hair a wild blaze about her, her skirts torn and shredded, her feet bare. If she weren’t so enraged, he would have smiled. She was in a sorry state, except that, even so, she was more captivating than ever. Her legs were bare to her thighs, her breasts strained against the damp material of her bodice, and she might have been some pagan creature from a far barbaric time.
He stared at her blankly. She hissed some other ungodly name his way, and her toe landed hard against his midsection again. His own temper bubbled and soared and skyrocketed with him, exploding like some witch’s brew.
He groaned, and she kicked him anew!
He pushed up from the sand in amazement.
“Skye! What the hell is the matter with you?”
“You!” she told him.
Then he touched his face. Half of the beard was there; half of it was gone. He muttered out an expletive and pulled away the remaining false whiskers, wincing as he did so. He was weary. His head was splitting and he ached from head to toe and she was standing there abusing him verbally—and physically—with a vengeance.
“Get up!” she commanded him, bringing the point of his own sword close against his jugular. His eyes narrowed with a flash of anger as he came slowly to his feet, facing her. “I should dice you into tiny pieces, and save the hangman his efforts. My God, the things that you did to me!”
“The things that I did to you!”
“Oh, Captain-Lord-Cameron-Hawk! How could you! How dare you! Hanging will be far too good a fate for you!” She started walking forward in her vehemence, and with that razor-honed blade so close to his throat, he had no choice but to back away from her along the sand. He’d never seen her this angry. He didn’t know if she would or wouldn’t use it.
“Give me the sword, Skye.”
“Give you the sword? You must be out of your mind.”
“You don’t want me to kill me—”
“Kill you!” Her brows shot up eloquently. “Kill you? Oh, my dear captain! I’m longing to kill you, but torture comes first! I should love to see you stew in boiling oil, or perhaps have your fingers and toes and other protrusions chopped off, one by one—”
“Madame—” he began warningly.
“No! Let’s see, who shall I kill, Lord Cameron? No, my legal husband, a member of the peerage, no … ’tis the pirate I should kill. Captain Hawk. The scurvy knave, the rogue, the—”
“Your lover, Lady Cameron?” he inquired with a long, taunting drawl. She hesitated and he continued, daring to put his fingers upon the cold steel and move it away from his throat and bear slowly down upon her in turn. Once more they moved across the sand, with his voice rising in deep angry tones. “Ah, yes! Captain Hawk, the Silver Hawk. That dastardly villain who so crudely and brutally raped you upon your first meeting. That was the description of what came between us, wasn’t it? Is that what you told your husband, milady, when you threw yourself so completely upon his mercy when trying to disavow your marriage?”
They came against a palm tree. She gasped, startled, as her back hit it. Then her jaw locked and the sword whistled as she smoothly retrieved the blade from his touch. The edge just drew a thin line of blood against his thumb and he made a furious sound like a growl. It did not daunt her in the least. The blade was next to his throat once again.
“You son-of-a-bitch! You were cruel and brutal when you seized that ship! You and your announcements that the crew were free to take Tara and Bess … but that I was yours! Thrusting me into that dark chamber, seizing my clothing—”
“I thrust you into my cabin because I wanted you safe from the crew. They are good men and loyal, but a captain always needs to take care. And I seized your clothing because they were damp and you might well have gotten pneumonia.”
“I might have had some choice in the matter.”
“Give me the sword, Skye.”
They had come back center on the sand. They circled one another very warily.
“And on that island—” she began.
“What on that island? What? Go ahead, tell me! Was I cruel on the island, brutal? Ah, yes, that’s where I forced you into my arms.”
“You did force me—”
“Never, lady, and hence your wrath against me! My God, I had the patience and restraint of a saint—”
“Of a saint!”
“Of a saint. And I warned you time and again, and still you came to me. Vixen, you came to me.”
“You knew about—you knew about the marriage!” she charged him.
“Yes, I knew. Of course, I knew. ’Tis my wife I came to rescue.”
“And ’
twas your wife you seduced?” she snapped.
A slight flush of color touched his cheeks. “I didn’t intend to.”
“Oh!” She stamped her foot against the sand and prodded the sword further against him. “You slimy, seafaring bastard! You went running from my house to bed another woman, knowing that I would come after you! Don’t you ever, ever think to touch me—”
“There was no other woman.”
“Liar! We both saw her; her hair was red—”
“I hired her, merely to irritate you.” The words were a mistake. Her hand shook. The steel touched him ever more closely. “Skye, give me back my sword!”
“Never! When I give you this steel, Captain Cameron-Hawk, you are going to feel it beyond a doubt.”
“There was no woman. But you—you, my love, my dear, darling devoted wife—”
“I never claimed to be a devoted wife!” she spat out. “I was forced to be a wife, just as I was forced to be a pirate’s possession!”
“Ah, but the wife didn’t mind going off to make a bargain with a pirate. Promises, my love, remember!”
“You are the most despicable man ever!” she hissed.
He ducked down, seeking to retrieve his sword. She sent it slashing dangerously through the air and he quickly danced back a step, circling her. “Me, milady! Me?”
“You! This double life of yours! Well, I promise you, sir,they will hang you just as high as the Silver Hawk, even knowing that you are Lord Cameron! You were supposedly my father’s friend! And you stole his ship anyway. I should slice you from groin to neck for that alone.”
“Oh, so that’s it, lady! The hurt is sexual indeed! Slice him to pieces and make sure you damage the man!”
“ ’Tis your heart I’d like on a platter!”
“Is it, milady? I seized your father’s ship from One-Eyed Jack, lady,” he reminded her tensely. “I seized you from him and his band of murdering cutthroats!”
“And you took me to Bone Cay!” Tears were suddenly stinging her eyes, and she didn’t want him to see them. She blinked them back furiously and kept moving, watching him very warily at all times. She should kill him. She should kill the pirate Silver Hawk right then and there. He would deserve it.
“Give me the sword, Skye!”
“No!”
Suddenly he drew his long knife from the sheath at his calf. He smiled, his eyes glittering silver. “Then slay me,” he told her.
“Stop it!” she commanded as he feinted toward her with the short broad blade. Hers was by far the better weapon, and she did know how to use it. “Stop it or I shall have to kill you!”
“Come, come, love! Aye, the temptation is great for me!” He dove toward her. She reeled back, slicing at his blow, and their steel clanged together loudly. She swirled around, ready for the next attack. He was coming at her now with a new vengeance. “I should catch you now and beat you silly, madame, redden your aristocratic and sashaying derriere—”
“It’s been done before!” she reminded him, her teeth gritted.
“Ah, but the pirate had the pleasure, and not Lord Cameron. Not the injured husband.”
“Injured husband!” She was so startled and incensed that she stood still. He lunged, and she was forced to leap back, just barely parrying his blow. “Injured husband indeed!”
“Injured husband. Seduced so sweetly by his angelic and long-suffering wife, just so that she could viciously render him unconscious with a liquor bottle!”
“I had to—”
“You had to! Ah, yes, render Lord Cameron senseless so that you could run off into the arms of another man. To promise to bed him as happily and givingly as a lark for services rendered!”
“Oh, how dare you!” she shouted, and for the moment, she had the advantage again. She moved across the sand in a flurry, and the air cried out with the force of swords and steel as she backed him far across the beach to palm tree again. “How dare you! Fine! You hired a whore just to lie naked with you in a bed to taunt me!”
“Aye!” he cried. “And you were distressed that the Silver Hawk had lain with another woman—not that he asked you to be the adulteress to come to him!”
“You bastard, you deserved it! I asked you to leave me be as my good and strong and loyal husband—I warned you about the other man and the fact that I could … that I could carry the Hawk’s child. But you! You waited until I slept, and then you seduced me, after all that I had said—”
“Exactly, milady! Those words mattered until you meant to leave me for the Hawk—then you came and seduced me! What of your morals then, eh, Lady Cameron?”
“How dare you—” she began again, but he saw his chance. He had unnerved her, and her grip was slack. He surged forward, catching the tip of his sword with tremendous force. The reverberation of it traveled down the steel and she cried, dropping the blade.
“I dare whatever I please, milady!” he assured her. “You are my wife, remember?”
She stared at him in fury and looked to the sword upon the ground.
They dove for it together.
Skye grappled desperately in the sand to reach the blade. His long bronzed fingers closed over it first, tossing it aside. She tried to reach it. He cast himself against her and they went rolling across the sand. When they came still again, he swiftly straddled her, pinning her beneath him, pinning her to the ground. She writhed and fought against his strength, squirming and kicking, and succeeding only in making the sand fly.Eventually she was gasping for air, and still his prisoner, exhausted and beaten. She stared at him defiantly. “You will hang, sir!”
He cocked his head inquiringly. “And will you come to the spectacle, my love? Will you watch, and perhaps shed a tear or two?”
“I’ve nothing to say to you. You’re a rogue.”
“And you’re a cunning, manipulative seductress, so which of the two of us is more at fault?”
“You!”
“Milady, I—”
“You! You knew all the while what was going on! You led me on time and time again, and taunted me on purpose. You knew that my soul was in agony and you—”
“Agony! When were you in agony, my love?”
“Oh, never mind! Just get off of me now, and leave me—”
“Get off of you! Well, love, this is typical. There I lay, sleeping deeply after having saved your life, plucking you from the cruel and icy fingers of the sea! Then you come up with your very tender toes and nearly dislocate the whole of my rib cage. You take a sword to my throat, and nearly slice open my veins. Now I am on top again, and so we should quit the fight. Well, no, milady, it does not work that way. I owe you, remember? I owe you for nearly splitting my skull with that bottle, for leaving me to nearly drown in a pool of rum. For trying to sever from my body various protrusions. It is not over! You will talk to me, and you will listen—”
“I will not listen!” she snapped. “Ever, ever again! I will be free from you, and so help me, I will see you hang! All of those innocents you have fooled! Lieutenant Governor Spotswood believing in you so deeply! How could you! Lord Cameron! You had everything that you could have wanted! But you had to be a pirate anyway. Robbing, stealing, plundering—”
“Raping?” he suggested nonchalantly.
Skye cried out an oath and tried to fight him again. Tears stung her eyes as she writhed and scrambled beneath him. She had so little of her gown left, it was awful. Her shift and shorn petticoats rose about her and she felt his damp thighs clamped hard against her bare hips. She went still, staring at him. He smiled slowly, a devil’s taunting, promising, sensual grin. Her heart sank. She could not deny his looks, his appeal. She could not deny the rippling, muscled strength of his arms, or the trembling that seized upon her when he stared at her that way, so very aware of her skirt climbing, and of the distress it caused her.
The silver glitter in his eyes was as wicked as the rogue’s curl of his smile. With tension all about him, he leaned toward her. “A pirate’s life, ah, yes, milady! The rogu
e’s way. I’m fond of it, yes, I am! Take what a man will, love where he desires, have what he wants! It’s a good life, it is! Surely, I will hang for it—and certainly, I will hang, too, for the deceit I played on you!”
She gasped suddenly, staring at him, twisting again with new vigor. “You are a—a despicable sea slime! Oh! Lord Cameron never doffed his clothes, not even to make love, because you were afraid I would know, that I would find some little mark, that—oh!”
“Yes, it was difficult,” he said nonchalantly. “Most difficult. I couldn’t have you in the dark—not with your fears, love. That’s why the pirate tried so hard not to touch you.”
“The pirate touched me again and again!”
He shrugged. “Yes, well, the part of Lord Cameron inside the pirate’s clothes didn’t want to think that his beloved wife would fall into the arms of another man.”
“I didn’t know that I was anyone’s wife!” she spat out. “Oh, you bastard! You cannot put this on me!”
He leaned low against her, his eyes still wickedly alive, his smile near to a taunting, sensual sneer. “I can do whatever I will, milady. I am a pirate, remember?”
She shook her head furiously. “You will never have me again.”
“You are still my wife.”
“I disavow you!”
“It isn’t that simple.”
“So help me, sir, if you ever touch me again, it will be rape!”
“Ah, but my lady,” he murmured, “you forget so much! The dread pirate Hawk has already taken you by force, why not again? Your words, milady, not mine. And Lord Cameron surely owes his bride the thrashing of her life. Then there is the main thing, and that is your father. You were willing to sell your … er, virture—or what was left of it—to find him first—”
“Oh!” she flared, twisting anew. Her skirt climbed completely and she was bare to the waist and they both knew it. He arched a single brow tauntingly.
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