Lord of Devil Isle (3 page)

She only had an answer for the last one.

She fingered her bottom lip, still tasting the hard salty kiss that had smacked of farewell. “A brave lunatic,” she muttered. “A bloody brave lunatic.”

His chest ached. His lungs burned for air. The last of his carefully hoarded breath had slipped away in tiny bubbles tickling across his cheek long ago. His ears threatened to explode. He fought the urge to inhale as he clawed toward the distant light.

The shark was dead.

Damned if he’d drown now.

His heart pounded like a smith’s hammer.

How much farther?

His arms and legs were slowing down. He couldn’t make them…he couldn’t…

He’d lost the knife. He couldn’t remember where.

His vision tunneled.

Then his head broke the surface and he dragged in a lungful of rain-sweet air. He sucked it in clear to his toes. Relief flooded his body. He lay back in the ocean’s arms, satisfied just to let his chest rise and fall. Stars wheeled overhead, brittle pinpoints of light poking through the sky’s black curtain.

Water muffled the sound of the dissipating storm. Nicholas drifted, closing his eyes in bone-deep weariness. How pleasant just to let the sea buoy him up, to let her rock him on her warm, wet breasts. How—

He jerked himself to full awareness.

The hull of the wreck loomed before him.

“As I live and breathe, what do we have here?” a sickeningly familiar voice drawled from above him. “I declare, I do believe it’s Captain Scott gone adrift.”

Adam Bostock was leaning over the gunwale of the wrecked
Molly Harper,
leering down at him. Bostock’s angular face was lit with self-congratulation as he slapped the rail with his thick palm.

“This vessel and her crew are secure now, and let me tell you, she’s a fine catch, but I still stand ready to aid another stranded mariner this night. Tell me, Nicholas, do you need my assistance?”

He wished for his lost knife with all his heart. Nothing would have kept him from hurling it at his gloating nemesis.

“Cap’n!” Tatem’s graveled voice echoed against the wrecked ship’s hull.

Nick pivoted in the water to see the jolly boat bearing down on him, the faces of his crew strained with worry. He glared at Bostock, then turned without a word. He wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction. He windmilled his arms through the water, streaking a beeline toward the boat, determined not to let Bostock see his crew haul him aboard like a lost bit of baggage.

Nick was shaking with rage by the time he heaved himself over the side of the jolly boat.

“That’s right. Best you hurry back to your ship, Nick!” Bostock cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted across the water. “I’d hate to see Higgs run the
Susan Bell
aground for you. But rest assured, if he does, the
Sea Wolf
will help you out.”

And claim her as salvage. Not bloody likely.

Nicholas balled his fingers into tight fists. He’d see the
Susan B
on the ocean floor before he let Bostock set so much as the sole of his cursed foot on her.

“Your orders, Cap’n?” Tatem said.

His crew knew there was no love lost between Nick and Bostock. They just didn’t know why. And Nick was determined to keep it that way.

“Home,” he said simply before sinking onto the nearest empty slat seat. He dragged a hand over his face. His head pounded as if he’d been on a three-day drunk.

“Captain Scott.” A feminine voice interrupted the anvil strikes in his head. “We’d like to thank you for your help. Words fail in expressing our gratitude.”

But words proceeded to fall out of her mouth nevertheless.

He looked up into the lovely face of the woman who’d been the last one out of the water. Here was a welcome distraction. Between the shark and Adam Bostock, he’d almost forgotten about her, but now he was vaguely glad his crew had managed to fish her out. She was sitting between the other two, who huddled around her, shivering and sobbing softly.

Her mouth continued to move, but he’d stopped listening to her words, lost in the tantalizing play of her lips, teeth and tongue. Pity that kiss had been so damned short, but there’d been no help for it at the time.

It was hard to imagine that same soft, lovely mouth could wrap itself around such an inventive string of profanity. Her language would’ve made a bosun blush. It made no sense, but he’d heard her with his own ears. Here was a puzzlement worth untangling and a mouth definitely worth further investigation. His mood improved out of all reason as his gaze drifted down her neck to her low bodice.

It seemed to be a little known fact among womankind that wet muslin was well-nigh transparent. And this woman’s dress was plastered to her form as if it had been troweled on. Her high breasts would make a pleasing handful and her tight nipples showed darkly through the wet fabric, two plump little berries.

“Mm…hmm,” he said, his groin speaking to him
so loudly he had no ears for her words. Satisfied, she rattled on.

The planes of her long thighs, creamy and smooth, showed readily through the thin muslin.

Nick’s attention was only diverted when the jolly boat arrived back alongside the
Susan Bell.
Higgs had kept her well beyond the ring of reefs while he waited for their return.

Without responding to the woman’s running dialogue, Nicholas stood. “Prepare to make fast.”

“Captain.” A pair of deep grooves marred the space between her even brows when he didn’t acknowledge her. “Captain Scott, will you agree to help us or not?”

“What did you say your name is?” he asked as he hauled away on one of the lines.

“Miss Upshall.”

“How very appropriate.” He looped a rope around her waist and gave a hand signal to the men above. “
Up
you shall go.”

“Ooof!” Her feet left the pitching boat as the sailors heaved at the other end of the line, bearing her aloft.

Nicholas gave her an additional heft with a palm to her rump, enjoying the feel of her sweet flesh through the wet fabric, as his crew hauled their new passenger aboard. Her skirt billowed in the stiff breeze and gave him and the men in the jolly boat a fleeting glance up the muslin tent to the shadowy realm between her legs.

How delightful that women wore nothing at all beneath those yards and yards of fabric. Even if danger averted hadn’t already given him an aching cockstand, Miss Upshall was quite enough to make him crowd his trousers.

“Enjoy what you can, boys,” Nicholas said with a laugh. “It’s the only prize you’ll win this night.”

His crew laughed with him. None of them questioned his choice to abandon the wreck in favor of these three women, even though the booty they’d lost in his decision was considerable. They knew if it had been one of them in the deep, he’d have made the same choice and saved their lives as well.

Some things were more precious than a bolt of Manchester wool or Welsh tin.

Or even a pound of tea.

The other two women were hauled up in similar fashion. Then the jolly boat crew climbed after them, up the rope netting that draped the ship’s starboard side before the boat was raised.

As soon as Nick cleared the gunwale, Miss Upshall was there to meet him.

“Captain Scott, I must protest—”

“If you feel you’ve been ill-used, Miss Upshall, we’ll be happy to drop you back where we found you.” He pulled his shirt over his head and twisted the fabric to wring out the saltwater in a long stream.

“Sir! If you please!”

She stepped back a pace and averted her gaze as though a man’s bare chest was uncharted territory for her.

Nicholas chuckled.

Her head snapped toward him and her gaze didn’t waver this time. “There’s no need to snigger at me. I’m not the one who’s half-naked.”

If she only knew that muslin was still wet enough to make her a liar. Her nipples stood out stiffly like proud little soldiers. She didn’t even need to pinch them to attention the way Magdalen had.

“Even here at the edge of the world, surely there are standards, rules of decency and—”

“Indeed there are and they don’t generally include ladies who are able to outswear old salts.”

Her mouth snapped shut at that.

“Mr. Williams, relieve Mr. Higgs at the helm.” Nicholas snapped his fingers for Higgs, who responded so fast, Nick wondered if his britches were afire. “Your names, if you please, so Mr. Higgs can enter you into the ship’s log.”

“I’m Sally Munroe,” the blonde spoke up. “And this is Penelope Smythe.”

Miss Upshall glared at him in silence.

“Mr. Higgs is waiting and your friends are dripping all over my deck. Your Christian name, of your kindness, Miss Upshall. A ship’s log demands a certain thoroughness.”

“Eve,” she spat out. “Eve Upshall.”

“Eve,” he repeated.
The original temptress. How fitting.
“Mr. Higgs, take our passengers below and find them something dry to wear.”

“This way, if you will, ladies.” Higgs made a smart leg and started toward the aft stairs.

Nick grinned at the unusual display of good manners. His first mate’s speech impediment rendered him shy and stammering with the ladies on dry land. Who’d have thought Peregrine Higgs had a courtly bone in his body?

Two of the women were quick to follow his first mate, but Miss Upshall didn’t budge an inch.

“I’m not going anywhere until you and I come to an understanding, Captain.”

Several of his crewmen were unable to keep their eyes to themselves as they passed Miss Upshall in her wet gown. Truth to tell, he couldn’t blame them.

“Then perhaps you’d care to join me in my cabin,
where our understanding can be more complete.” He glared at able seaman Tatem, who quickly averted his gaze and hurried on with his business. “And more private.”

She glanced around at the loitering crew. “Accompany a man who obviously has no sense of propriety into a more private setting? How daft do you think I am?”

There was a question no sane man would answer.

But if he were king, Nick decided he’d declare wet muslin the height of fashion and demand all his female courtiers wear it every day. Too often a woman could pad and plump her way into a much more pleasing form with a man none the wiser till he was committed to a bedding.

Miss Upshall’s charms needed no enhancements, her breasts as ripe a pair of pips as a man could wish.

Indeed, some of his men eyed her as if they were a wolf pack and she a lost ewe they’d like to have to supper. Nick didn’t know how much longer they’d confine themselves to just looking. The last thing he needed this night was a brawl with his own men.

“Perhaps you’ll allow that a lady would be better served in my cabin, where I can drape my greatcoat over her than on the open deck with no protection from the elements at all.” He let his gaze wander pointedly to her breasts and then back to meet her eyes.

Miss Upshall looked down and instantly realized her state. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Very well, Captain. Let us remove to your cabin immediately.”

She followed him down the companionway. He held the hatch open for her and gave her a casual leg, a much less elegant gesture than his first mate had sketched for the women.

If wrestling a shark wasn’t enough to impress this woman, Nick couldn’t imagine what would.

Eve Upshall breezed past him into his sanctuary and lifted his greatcoat from its peg without waiting for his help. After she donned it, her sharp eyes swept his cabin. Like everything on the
Susan Bell,
it was spartan, but he was proud of it.

The small cabin held a narrow bed along one wall. A table that doubled as space for both his mess and a working desk was screwed to the floor in the center of the cabin. An oil lamp swung from one of the low beams. A row of windows canted over the stern, giving Nick a sweeping view of where he’d been. A narrow shelf held his charts and instruments and a few precious books that filled his infrequent idle moments at sea.

“Please, have a seat.” He offered her the only chair in the room. In the lamplight, he noticed that her bedraggled dark hair had auburn highlights.

He’d always fancied redheads.

He reached over to brush an errant lock off her cheek, but she shied like a whipped pup.

“Easy, lass,” he said, as he tucked the strand behind her ear. Her cheek was soft, but lightly grained with salt from her time in the sea. “Check your bearings. You’re safe now.”

Nicholas opened his sea trunk and pulled out a dry shirt. He thought about offering her one, but she’d been given an opportunity to find dry clothes and dismissed it. Besides, she was now thoroughly engulfed in
his heavy oilskin coat. Pity. He’d have enjoyed the show till the muslin dried.

“I’m deeply grateful for your assistance this night, and in truth, I’ve never seen such a reckless display of courage. Nevertheless,” she said primly, “you owe me an apology, Captain.”

“Indeed? For what offense?”

Her cheeks flamed. “For kissing me without permission.”

He laughed. “That was hardly a kiss, lass. It just seemed a shame to waste a pair of lips at the time.”

He considered her for a moment. Fashion favored a little pink bow of a mouth, but this wench’s red lips were a wide, full ribbon, slanting sensually across her oval face.

Nick decided little pink bows were overrated.

He leaned forward, bracing himself on the arms of her chair. “Now this,” he said simply, “is a kiss.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but it only made his job easier. He slanted his lips over hers, capturing her with ease. She was rigid with surprise at first, but he expected that. He also fully expected the way her mouth softened under his in the next heartbeat. Her lips were dusted with sea salt, but he slid his tongue past them to search out the honey inside.

Damn, she was sweet. She made some noises, but they didn’t sound like the usual moans of pleasure he coaxed from Magdalen. He tried to tease her tongue into chasing his back into his mouth, but she played coy.

Her hands found his chest, raking her nails across his skin.

Encouraged, he deepened the kiss.

And then the little minx grasped a few of the dark hairs that whorled around his nipples and yanked them out!

“Ow!” He jerked away from her, rubbing his chest.

“The next time you force something into my mouth without my permission, I will bite it off,” she promised with an evil glare.

Even fully enraged, she was a damned fetching bit of muslin. His stiff cock was wholly undeterred by the stinging spot of skin on his chest that was now bare as a baby’s butt.

“Do you make a habit of trying to maim the men who save your life?” he demanded.

“Only those who seem to think a heartfelt thank-you is insufficient gratitude.” She refolded her hands in her lap. “Captain, I ask for your promise that in the future you will refrain from attempting to kiss me unless I give my permission.”

“Truth to tell, that kiss of yours was no prize and is hardly worth repeating.” By thunder, no woman had ever refused to bed him, let alone kiss him. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at her.

“However, if I decide to kiss you again, I’ll do it,” he said with certainty. “And I’ll not be asking for any permission then either.”

“We’ll see about that.” She narrowed her eyes at him. They were the deep aqua of the Great Sound on a clear summer day, but now there was a definite squall brewing behind them. Then her gaze swept down his form and he could almost see her remembering that she was supposed to be upset about his bare chest. She lowered her eyes.

“For the sake of our shared danger, I shall try to overlook your unchivalrous behavior.”

“Unchivalrous?” he said, thunderstruck. “I leaped into shark-infested waters for you. If that doesn’t qualify as chivalrous in the extreme, I’d like to know what would.”

“Captain, I will not be drawn into a debate. Of course, I appreciate that you rescued my friends and me. I simply will not be treated as though I owe you more than a lady ought to repay.”

Nick’s lips thinned.
I’ll be buggered. A bona fide lady.
For the past few years, he’d avoided that rare species as if they carried the plague.

“However, it seems I also owe you an apology,” she said, lacing and unlacing her fingers on her lap, while her gaze darted about the room, looking anywhere but at him.

“And what was
your
offense? Besides barbering without a blade.” He chuckled, hoping to ease the tension between them, though he decided to take his time about donning a clean shirt since his state of undress clearly unnerved her.

“When we were in the water and the shark headed back toward us…well, my tongue seemed to act of its own accord. I said some unseemly things. I hope you’ll allow that I was not myself for a moment.”

“No, I suspect you were exactly yourself. At times like that, a body cannot be otherwise. Besides, the situation called for a few ripe phrases.” He was about to commend her for levelheaded behavior in straits that might have undone many a man, but she plunged ahead with her agenda.

“But now that we are no longer in dire straits, I must insist that you and I reach an accord.”

“Willingly,” he said with a ready grin. “I’m always agreeable to an accord with a fine young lady.”

“Young lady of good family,” she corrected. “And as such, I entreat you to help us continue our journey.”

Good family.
He allowed that might be so. The lace at her bodice and wrists bespoke quality and she wore a silver necklace with a locket. He pulled his shirt on over
his head and tied the tabs at his throat. It covered him to midthigh.

“And just where are the three of you going in such an all-fired hurry?” he asked.

“My friends and I are en route to the Carolinas.”

He made frequent runs from the Turks to Charleston, delivering salt and other less legal goods in exchange for foodstuffs desperately needed in Bermuda. The island waters provided bountifully, but a man could only stomach so much fish. In Charleston, he would load up the
Susan B
’s hold with jerked beef, salt pork and much needed grain. Miss Upshall’s plans might dovetail nicely with his.

Nicholas reached under the hem of his fresh shirt and popped the buttons on his slop trousers.

“Captain Scott!”

“I need to get out of these wet trousers.” He let the broad-legged britches drop to his ankles and stepped out of them, frowning at her. “Salt water will gald a man in short order.”

“But you’re…you’re…” Her eyes were round as a pair of sea urchins.

“Naked beneath my shirt? Aye, but I’m covered enough for decency,” he said as he hitched up a clean pair of trousers. “Besides aren’t you naked beneath your skirts as well?”

“A gentleman should not speak so.”

“There’s your difficulty, Miss Upshall. You’re laboring under the misapprehension that I’m a gentleman when I’m only a humble sailing man.” He grinned wickedly. “And one who knows full well you’ve naught beneath your skirts but a pair of fine long legs.”

She fumed, but he smiled at the memory of her kicking beneath the yards of muslin as she was hauled aboard. He turned his back to her while he fastened the
drop front of his britches. It might hurt his argument that he was sufficiently covered if his cock tented his long shirt toward her.

“Humble sailing man.” He heard her mutter behind him. ”There’s nothing the least humble about you.”

He decided to ignore the jab. “Now what’s so urgent for three young ladies of good family in the Carolinas?”

“Our weddings, sir, if that’s any of your business.”

When he turned to face her again, she was studying her folded hands, settled neatly on her lap.

“My companions and I are all engaged to marry gentlemen of property.”

“Really? And where did you meet these gentlemen of property?

“We haven’t. Not yet, in any case.”

“Then how did these astounding engagements come to be?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Our marriages were arranged, of course.”

“I’ve been to the Carolinas,” he said. “They suffer no shortage of women there. Why do these gentlemen need to drag you and your friends across the Atlantic?”

“Perhaps the colonial women there will do for most men, but these are men of distinction who want their wives to be English-born,” she said primly. “They wish to make certain their children have the proper sensibilities, closer ties to England and the Crown.”

Nick laughed. “There are plenty in the Colonies who don’t give a flying fig for the Crown.”

She blinked hard, shock registering on her features.

“Surely you’ve heard of the agitators, the patriots, they call themselves?” Nick couldn’t believe the Colonies’ unrest wasn’t common knowledge in London. “There’s a rat’s nest of them up in Boston, but their words are flying
from printers’ presses up and down the Atlantic seaboard, spreading sedition like cankerwort seeds.”

The colonists’ quarrel with the Stamp Act, the tea tax and laws requiring them to quarter British soldiers had smoldered for the last decade and now threatened to erupt into real violence.

But not everyone suffered for it.

By rights, Nick should kiss the feet of King George and his heavy-handed parliament. Laws requiring the colonists to trade only with England had made Nick’s smuggled cases of French wine and Caribbean rum ridiculously lucrative.

A little rebellion was good for business.

“How can they sanction such treason?” She shook her head in wonderment.

“They don’t see it so. They claim to want representation since they’re subject to taxation.” Nick frowned. Why was he talking taxes with a delightfully wet woman? Still, he felt bound to warn her that life in the Carolinas might not be what she was expecting. “It’s not everyone, of course, but there are those who would cut all ties with the old order and launch out on their own.”

“Surely the King’s loyal subjects will not allow such a thing to happen.”

“Loyal subjects like your prospective husband?”

“Exactly. Mr. Smoot Pennywhistle, Esq., of the Carolinas, gentleman and planter. He’s even a deacon in the congregation near his home.” She reached for the locket at her throat and popped open the compartment to gaze at the miniature inside. Her features fell. “Oh, it’s ruined.”

“If you will allow me?” Nicholas held out a hand. She unclasped the locket and dropped it into his palm. The tiny painting was smudged and waffled from its
exposure to seawater, but he could still make out the profile of a bewigged gentleman with a hefty set of jowls.

Nick knew the type. Pasty-faced, dissipated with too much food and drink, and satisfied to luxuriate in the fine things provided him by the labor of others. Mr. Smoot Pennywhistle was certainly not a match for the lively, opinionated woman sitting before him now.

“Let your Mr. Pennywhistle bake in the Bermuda sun for a day or two and I’m sure he’ll be as good a man as ever he was,” Nick said with sarcasm as he handed the locket back.

“Oh, I hope so,” she said, missing his meaning as she fastened the thin chain around her neck once more. “So, you see, if you help us continue on our journey, I’m certain our fiancés would see you handsomely rewarded.”

“Not your good families?”

The question seemed to catch her by surprise. “Well, naturally they would be glad to learn of your assistance.”

“Excellent,” he said. “There’s a packet leaving for Bristol in a week. We’ll send word to your families with it. It may take some time, but at least news of your survival should arrive alongside reports of the
Molly Harper
’s wreck.”

“That’s not necessary. The important thing is—”

“The important thing is you don’t know who your prospective groom really is and I suspect your family doesn’t either.” He couldn’t imagine why a beauty like Eve Upshall didn’t have a dozen suitors clamoring for her hand in England. Even if her dowry was less than impressive, what he’d seen of her so far would more than make up for lack of funds to any man worthy of the name. He crossed his arms over his chest and cocked
his head at her. “Are the three of you running away for some reason?”

“Of course not!” she said, a trifle too quickly. “What a ridiculous notion.”

“Almost as ridiculous as sailing across the Atlantic to wed a man you’ve never met,” Nick said. “Your family had no part in arranging this, did they?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no, they didn’t initiate matters. Our fiancés sent an agent to England to locate suitable wives. It’s all quite proper, I assure you. Biblical, even.”

“Biblical?”

“Of course. Have you never read how the patriarch Abraham sent his steward back to his father’s homeland to find a wife for his son Isaac?” She leaned forward, her expression earnest. “Lieutenant Rathbun reminded me of that at our first meeting. He says that accomplished gentlemen with many demands on their time have often deferred to the wisdom of a third party in the matter of choosing a bride.”

“Who’s Lieutenant Rathbun?” Nick was predisposed not to like him already. If he was spouting scripture, he might even be a Methodist.

“He’s the gentleman who’s escorting us to the Carolinas.” She frowned. “But when the ship ran aground, we were separated from him in the confusion and I don’t know how he fared this night.”

Nick didn’t know either, but he doubted Rathbun was a gentleman. The whole tale was a point off plumb. Eve Upshall didn’t strike him as a fool, but in this instance, she seemed entirely too trusting.