Capture The Wind (8 page)

Watching him, she put out her tongue to wet her lips in a nervous gesture. His eyes riveted on the pink tip as it drew slowly over her lush bottom lip, and he promptly dismissed his resolution to leave her alone. He lowered his head and closed his hands tightly around her upper arms as he bent down. His mouth smothered her startled protest. She tasted sweet, as he’d known she would, trembling under the pressure of his lips. After a moment, he lifted his head and stared down at her through narrowed eyes. She was breathing swiftly, eyes wide, and he felt a surge of anger at his own weakness.

He pushed her away from him. His teeth clenched against a remark that would only make matters worse. Kit reached for the box lantern he’d set on the roof of the coach house. He took a step back, holding the lantern higher, and saw her chin quiver before she steadied it. She put a hand behind her as if to hide her cowering companion in the shadows.

“Well?” she demanded coolly. “Have you done with your rudeness, Captain?”

“Pirates are supposed to be rude. Haven’t you heard? Or don’t you read the pamphlets detailing our exploits?”

“I do,” piped the girl still lurking in the shadows. “And you are one of the worst, sir. Captain, sir.”

Kit fought a wave of amusement. “Am I? How pleasing. All my hard work has not been unremarked.”

“No, indeed.” A mop of brown curls appeared in the fitful light of the lantern. “You are the scourge of the seas. A rapacious rascal with no morals. A defiler of decency and distressed damsels
 . . .
”

“How picturesque. Is that your phrase? No, I thought not. It does sound a bit exalted. Now, as to your disposal this evening
 . . .
”

“Do your worst.” Obviously well recovered from her fright, the blond miss flung back the hair from her eyes with a slender hand and stared at him in cool arrogance. “You will not find us compliant, I warn you.”

Kit put his left hand over his eyes and rubbed them. They were still stinging from all the smoke earlier. His lungs ached, too, and he’d probably be up all night coughing. He heaved a sigh.

“No, I had not thought to find you amenable in any way. Perhaps you’ve noticed that pirates don’t seem to consider compliancy a necessary virtue. Most ships we take are quite resistant to the notion, so be forewarned—I know how to deal with resistance.”

She blinked, her bravado cracking in the face of his coldness. “What do you
 . . .
mean to do with us now, then?”

“A bed. Sleep.” He deliberately leered. “I’ve never ’ad two birds in my bunk at once, luv. I thought I’d—oh, for Chrissake. Don’t get all defensive. I’m allowing you to sleep in my cabin for tonight. Alone. Or without me, at any rate.”

Turning on his heel, he strode over the deck without looking back. If they chose to follow, fine. If not, they could bloody well take what options would be left to them, which would make going down with a burning ship preferable in comparison.

The shuffles of footsteps behind him were evidence that they’d decided to chance him rather than his crew. A wise choice, in his opinion. Not that his crew weren’t good men, but they were not exactly the sort that young ladies of this ilk would find pleasant companions.

He slammed open the door to his cabin with more force than was necessary, then stood in the opening and motioned for the two women to precede him. They scuttled past him with obvious trepidation, and he felt another wave of irritation. Damn them. He didn’t really want them aboard the
Sea Tiger
anyway, and he certainly didn’t much care for the way they looked at him as if he was picking his teeth with human bones. It only increased his annoyance.

He left the door open and crossed to the cabinet that held pistols and sabers shining lethally in its racks. He locked it, tucked the key into the small placket in the front of his trousers, then turned to eye the two women. They clung to one another as if for safety, and he let go another irritated sigh.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to leave the debauchery for another time, ladies. I fear my day has been too long and tiring to be of much use as a despoiler of distressed damsels tonight. Do forgive me.”

He’d reached the cabin door before they spoke, and he turned to see the blond take a step toward him. She frowned. “We are to stay alone in your cabin?”

He leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms over his chest. “Regrettably, yes. Disappointed?”

She shook her head. “No. Pleasantly surprised. But I would like to ask a favor if I could, please
 . . .
”

“Of course. Being left in peace could not be enough for you, I’m certain. What do you want? Jewels? Gold? Another pistol, perhaps?”

“All that would be quite delightful,” she snapped, “but we would much prefer food.”

He stared at them. The mundane request seemed anticlimactic after her blazing theatrics above deck.

Indicating her companion, the blond continued, “Emily has a predilection to nausea aboard a ship. I thought if she ate, she would feel better.”

“Or have more to empty onto my carpet.” Kit straightened from his lazy posture against the doorjamb. “Very well. I’ll see what I can find in the galley. The cook has finished for the day, I’m certain, so it will have to be whatever I can manage to find.”

The girl stared at him, eyes cool and green and assessing. That, he discovered, irritated him as much as her melodramatic expectations. He shrugged and left, leaving the door open.

When he’d gone, Angela turned to Emily. The girl gazed back at her with wide, shadowed brown eyes.

“He kissed you,” Emily whispered, a tinge of awe in her tone.

Angela flushed. “I am aware of that, thank you. And now I would prefer to forget it.”

“But
 . . .
was it nice?”

She shot Emily a withering glance.
“Nice?
He’s a pirate, Emily. How can you ask a question like that?”

Emily shook her head. “I—I just wondered. I’ve never been kissed, you see. I had the thought
 . . .
” She paused and flushed painfully. “Well, he is handsome, for all that he’s a dreadful pirate.”

Angela stared at her. She had no intention of confessing that Captain Saber’s kiss had flustered her more than it had revolted her. She should have been horrified, and said something so crushing he would have slunk away like a dog with its tail between his legs. All she had been able to do, however, was tell him he was rude. Her cheeks grew hot at the memory, and she turned her attention back to Emily with an effort.

“Miss Angela, look. He left the door open!”

It swung gently on its hinges, noiseless and inviting, a tempting trap. She nodded. “Yes, I see that, Emily.”

“We can escape.”

“To where? The crow’s nest atop a mast? As he said, there is no place to hide aboard a ship, Emily. He would find us, and be quite angry that we had caused him trouble. No, we’ll have to wait here, I’m afraid. At least he doesn’t seem inclined to do anything too dreadful tonight. And he does intend to feed us.”

Emily gave a dainty shudder. “Why is it that I feel like a sheep being fattened for the slaughter?”

“What an alarming analogy. Perish the thought.”

“Perhaps he means to sell us as slaves at the next port,” Emily said glumly. “It happens a great deal to female captives, you know.”

“No. I didn’t know.” Angela stared at her with growing irritation. “I declare, Emily, I don’t know whether to believe your suspicions at times or ignore them. Do you get all this lurid information from the tabloids and pamphlets that circulate the London streets?”

Emily nodded. “A great deal of it, yes. But the information is based upon truth, Miss Angela. It may be exaggerated at times, but the truth is there.” She shuddered. “You know that pirates are cruel and brutal, and if they do not kill their captives, they do horrible things with them.”

“Such as sell them.”

“Yes. And that is one of the least dreadful fates that can befall gentlewomen.” She drew in a shaky breath. “I read that, last year, one of the women Captain Saber took as his prisoner threw herself overboard rather than face her family after what he’d done to her. And there is the matter of his crew. They are said to—”

“Enough,” Angela said fiercely. “Perhaps you are right, but I refuse to listen to any more of this. We will deal with what we must when the time comes.”

“Yes, Miss Angela.” Emily bent her head and stared down at her hands folded in her lap. “At least Captain Saber seems a bit more civilized than the pamphlets reported.”

Angela ignored that. Civilized? Hardly. Not with her lips still burning from his kiss. She resisted the impulse to touch them. She was aware, however, even more so than Emily, that he could do much more than he had. A shiver tickled down her spine, and she tried to forget her initial reaction to his kiss. It had startled her. She should have struggled against him, fought him, but instead had been taken aback by the spark of response that had ignited inside her. She shook her head, and thrust the memory from her mind.

Not now, for pity’s sake, when she had to think of a way out of this dreadful situation. She slumped with weariness as she studied the cabin in the mottled light provided by flickering lamps set in holders along the dark-paneled walls. Three sets of windows with thick, leaded glass in tiny diamond panes would flood the room with sunlight during the day. The cabin was quite large.

She was surprised at the tasteful furnishings that could have come from any London drawing room. A thick Turkish carpet of deep red and scattered gold flowers covered gleaming bare planks; several lacquered tables of exquisite craftsmanship held a variety of objects she would not have thought an uncouth pirate captain would wish to own. Delicate porcelain figurines, a Chinese fan in gilt and ivory, and tall, slender vases of the Ming dynasty reposed behind the glass doors of a wall cabinet. Nestled beside it was another set of glass doors holding shelves of leather-bound books. More books were stacked in a haphazard fashion around the cabin.

Angela walked to a table, and lifted a copy of
Castle Rackrent
by Maria Edgeworth in her hands. There was also a leather-bound treatise of the recent discovery of the Rosetta stone in Egypt. She flipped idly through pages that detailed how the stone made possible the deciphering of ancient hieroglyphics. About to close it, a name on the inside leather caught her attention. Apparently, pirates had no compunction about robbing even a duke. The name David Charles Edward Sheridan, Fourth Duke of Tremayne had been neatly inscribed there, mute testimony to the previous owner. Really. This Captain Saber was a dreadful man.

Emily made a muffled sound, and Angela turned to see that her face had gone from ivory to a distinct greenish shade. Slowly, Emily sank to the carpeted floor with her hands over her mouth. Angela dropped the treatise back to the table.

“What is it, Emily?”

“I feel ill,” came the smothered reply.

Angela sighed. “Again?”

Emily nodded, eyes welling with tears and desperation. Angela searched swiftly for a bowl, and found one in a lacquered cabinet bolted to the floor beneath a swaying lantern. She looked down at it for a moment. This was no crude metal bowl such as the one she’d had aboard the
Scrutiny,
but a Chinese enameled bowl painted with blue horses. Not at all the sort of chamber pot she’d expected to find in a pirate captain’s cabin.

Moaning, Emily made a retching noise, and Angela hurried toward her. The continuous pitching of the ship had increased, but she had been too distraught to notice it until now.

She shoved the bowl into Emily’s trembling hands just in time, and knelt beside her while the unfortunate girl retched violently. As always, Angela offered what comfort she could, patting Emily’s shoulder and holding her hair back from her face as she bent over the bowl. Concerned, she did not hear Captain Saber’s return until he spoke.

“What a charming scene. I shall remember it fondly in the days to come.”

Angela turned to look up at him with a frown. “Emily cannot help it. It’s the ship’s motion that causes her distress. I would think you could be a bit more sympathetic to her affliction.”

Saber dropped a wooden tray on a table. “I ooze sympathy. I just do it discreetly. Seasickness has never been a particular problem aboard the
Sea Tiger,
so perhaps you can understand my attitude. Shall I send Turk to you?”

“Turk—oh yes. The Moorish pirate.”

“Moorish? Do not suggest that ancestry to Turk. He will debate the accuracy of it with you at some length, and he can become quite tedious.”

Emily moaned, and Angela gave her another comforting pat before rising to her feet to face Saber. She fought a faint tremor in her voice as she asked, “Just what is Turk’s cure for nausea?”

“Nothing too painful, I assure you.” His eyes narrowed. “Did you expect poison? Dissection? No one aboard the
Sea Tiger
has been dissected in several months. We’ve almost forgotten how, and I’m certain our knives are too dull by now.”