The Pirate Lord (13 page)

With a groan, Gideon clenched the wheel.
Lysistrata
was among the many works of literature that his father had forced down his throat once he was old enough to read. “Yes. But don’t try to tell me she’s teaching them that. It’s Greek, for God’s sake. They wouldn’t understand a word, even if she knew it well enough to recite it.”

“She knows it well enough to give them a free translation, I assure you. When I left her she was telling them the story with great enthusiasm.”

Barnaby reached for the helm as Gideon swung away from it with an oath. “I should never have taken her aboard,” he grumbled as he strode for the ladder. “I should have sent her back to England gagged and bound!”

He ignored Barnaby’s answering laugh and climbed down the ladder, then headed for the hatch to the hold. He’d put a stop to this now, before she incited the women to mutiny.

As he descended into the darkness, he heard Sara’s animated voice speaking in slow, measured words. He halted on the steps. She was recounting the scene where the herald of Sparta tells the magistrate of Athens how desperate the men are to put an end to the women’s coldness. He couldn’t help but smile. She was reciting the passage without any reference to the many phallic puns in the original. Only Sara could transform
Lysistrata
, the bawdiest of Greek plays, into a chaste tale.

Wiping the smile from his face, he finished descending the steps and turned to find Sara standing at the far end of the hold, her back to him. A group of about thirty women and children surrounded her, their faces rapt as they listened intently to every word. Despite the cloying tropical heat in the windowless hold, only the children fidgeted, and their mothers hushed them whenever they ventured to do more than whisper their complaints.

He scowled. He’d had it right from the beginning—the blasted woman was nothing but trouble. How was it that she held an audience of hot, tired women in the palm of her hand with only a few words? These weren’t the sort of women who were easily led. They’d all seen the nastiest side of the world.

Yet Sara told a tale in that rich, captivating voice of hers and they believed every word, ready to follow her into all kinds of trouble. Well, he wouldn’t let that happen. Not again. Matters were progressing well, and she wouldn’t spoil it with her continual attempts to foment unrest.

He strode forward, heedless of the murmuring that began among the women when they saw him. Then Sara turned, and her gaze met his. Instantly a guilty blush spread over her cheeks that told him all he needed to know about her intent.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” he said in steely tones. “Class is over for today. Why don’t you all go up on deck and get a little fresh air?”

When the women looked at Sara, she folded her hands primly in front of her and stared at him. “You have no right to dismiss my class, Captain Horn. Besides, we aren’t yet finished. I was telling them a story—”

“I know. You were recounting
Lysistrata
.”

Surprise flickered briefly in her eyes, but then she turned smug and looked down her aristocratic little nose at him. “Yes,
Lysistrata
,” she said in a sweet voice that didn’t fool him for one minute. “Surely you have
no objection to my educating the women on the great works of literature, Captain Horn.”

“None at all.” He set his hands on his hips. “But I question your choice of material. Don’t you think Aristophanes is a bit beyond the abilities of your pupils?”

He took great pleasure in the shock that passed over Sara’s face before she caught herself. Ignoring the rustle of whispers among the women, she stood a little straighter. “As if you know anything at all about Aristophanes.”

“I don’t have to be an English lordling to know literature, Sara. I know all the blasted writers you English make so much of. Any one of them would have been a better choice for your charges than Aristophanes.”

As she continued to glower at him unconvinced, he scoured his memory, searching through the hundreds of verse passages his English father had literally pounded into him. “You might have chosen Shakespeare’s
The Taming of the Shrew
, for example—‘Fie, fie! Unknit that threatening unkind brow. / And dart not scornful glances from those eyes / To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.’”

It had been a long time since he’d recited his father’s favorite passage of Shakespeare, but the words were as fresh as if he’d learned them only yesterday. And if anyone knew how to use literature as a weapon, he did. His father had delighted in tormenting him with quotes about unrepentant children.

Sara gaped at him as the other women looked from him to her in confusion. “How…I mean…where could you possibly—”

“Never mind that. The point is, you’re telling them the tale of
Lysistrata
when what you should be telling them is, ‘Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper. / Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee / And for thy maintenance commits his body / To painful labour both by sea and land.’”

Her surprise at his knowledge of Shakespeare seemed
to vanish as she recognized the passage he was quoting—the scene where Katherine accepts Petruchio as her lord and master before all her father’s guests.

Sara’s eyes glittered as she stepped from among the women and came nearer to him. “We are not your wives yet. And Shakespeare also said, ‘Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more / Men were deceivers ever / One foot on sea and one on shore / To one thing constant never.’”

“Ah, yes,
Much Ado About Nothing
. But even Beatrice changes her tune in the end, doesn’t she? I believe it’s Beatrice who says, ‘Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu! / No glory lives behind the back of such./ And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee, / Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.’”

“She was tricked into saying that! She was forced to acknowledge him just as surely as you are forcing us!”

“Forcing you?” he shouted. “You don’t know the meaning of force! I swear, if you—”

He broke off when he realized that the women were staring at him with eyes round and fearful. Sara was twisting his words to make him look like a monster. And succeeding, too, confound her.

“Out!” he roared at the women. “All of you! Get out now! I wish to speak to Miss Willis alone!”

He didn’t have to say it twice. The women were tired, hot, and scared, and all they needed was his command to make them flee the hold in a whisper of skirts. Sara stared in woeful despair as the hold emptied. “Come back! He can’t make you leave! He has no right—”

“Sorry, miss,” the last of the women murmured, an anxious look on her face. Then she ducked her head and shooed her children toward the ladder.

When they were gone, she whirled on him, eyes flashing. “How dare you! You have no right to walk in here and just dismiss my pupils, you…you bully!”

The fact that her accusation had a ring of truth to it didn’t make it any easier for him to stomach. In a few
stiff strides he was beside her. “I’m tired of you calling me a bully, Sara. True, we took your ship, but since then, have you been mistreated? Have you been raped? Beaten? Locked in your cabin?”

“No, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time! And you
did
force yourself on me yesterday!”

Sara regretted her words the moment she said them. Yesterday’s kiss was supposed to have been forgotten by both of them. She, of all people, shouldn’t have mentioned it—especially in such an inflammatory manner.

His body tensed, the scar on his cheek standing out in vivid contrast to his tanned skin. Taking two quick steps forward, he caught her about the waist before she could get away. “Is that what happened yesterday? I forced myself on you, and you suffered my kisses? Strange, but I don’t remember it like that.” His voice lowered to a rough murmur. “I remember your mouth opening beneath mine. I remember you burying your hands in my hair and clinging to my neck. That’s not how most women respond to force.”

Furious at having her own weakness thrown in her face, she balled her hands into fists against his chest, but he jerked her against him, plastering her body against his taut thighs and lean waist. “You have no idea what force is, Sara, no idea at all. Maybe it’s time someone showed you what real force is like.”

“No-o-o…” she whispered as he bent his head to hers, but his mouth cut off any further protest.

His kiss was hard and relentless, his hold on her tight and unyielding. She squirmed and shoved at him, trying to free herself. With eyes glittering, he responded by setting her on top of the high trunk. Then he grabbed her wrists and twisted them behind her back, holding them with one large hand while he used the other to catch her jaw and hold her head still so he could kiss her again.

His was a punishing kiss, designed to make her hate him. And she did. At that moment, she truly did. He
tried to force his tongue between her teeth, but she held them tightly clenched, determined not to let him win this battle. When she realized there was no way to escape his grip, she fought him the only way she could think of: she bit his lower lip. He drew his head back with a curse, but he didn’t release her, even though she’d drawn blood.

“That, my dear Sara, is ‘force’,” he ground out. “And you don’t like it one bit, do you?”

She could have sworn she saw guilt in his eyes, but dismissed the notion at once. This…this brute was incapable of guilt!

Then his gaze softened in the lantern light of the windowless hold, and his tone altered subtly to a more soothing cadence. “Not that I blame you. I don’t like it either. I don’t want you fighting me.”

His eyes seemed to drink in every line, every shade of her face. He softened his grip on her chin, then bracketed her throat lightly with his fingers. As she held her breath, he stroked his thumb and fingers down both sides of her neck. “No,” he said, his voice growing husky. “I prefer to have you as you were yesterday…soft…lovely…yielding…”

The words themselves were a caress, and the way he looked at her mouth, as if it were a particularly juicy morsel, made shivers dance down her spine. She fought the traitorous sensations. “You can’t have me at all.”

“Can’t I?” A knowing smile touched his lips. He lowered his head and she braced herself for another brutal kiss. Instead, he pressed his lips to the pulse on the side of her neck.

His lips were warm and buttery soft, nothing like they’d been a few moments ago. She tried to sit still, to pretend he wasn’t heating up her blood and making her tremble like a needle on a compass. Whole surges of feeling were taking over her body. She couldn’t seem to stop them. His mouth moved higher to tease her ear,
then scattered kisses along a path to her cheek, his rough whiskers scraping her skin.

Ignoring the desire that trickled through her defenses, she dragged in a shaky breath and kept as aloof as any woman could when a man was treating her body to a thousand delicate caresses. But when he began bestowing kisses on every part of her face except her lips, she found herself actually wanting his mouth on hers, craving his kiss there.

And like the scoundrel he was, he seemed to know exactly what she wanted. He drew back for a moment, his gaze fastening on her trembling lips. Then he covered them with his.

It was soft. Stealthy. Devilishly exquisite. He traced the curve of her lips with his tongue, then boldly drove it into her mouth. She told herself to fight him like the proper earl’s daughter she was. He had no business doing this to her.

But the fight had gone out of her. He felt so strong, so male. The ship’s hold was his domain, dark and secretive and full of temptations. Even the rocking of the ship seemed to conspire with him, forcing her to lean into him to keep her balance on the trunk. He thrust his tongue into her trembling mouth with possessive strokes, and every one made her weak in the knees…and the belly and the loins. Good heavens, no one had ever made her feel this…this treacherous restlessness, this urge to respond to every kiss with an equally fervent one of her own.

By the time his hand trailed down her neck, then her breastbone to rest on one of her breasts, there was no resistance left in her. She did nothing. Nothing at all, except to arch into his kiss like a shameless wanton.

Gideon felt the change in her at once, especially when he released her hands, because instead of pushing him away, she slid them beneath his vest to grip his waist. Confound her, she was amazing. Why didn’t she despise him for the cruel way he’d kissed her at first? He
despised himself for it, so much that he’d kissed her again just to show her he wasn’t the monster she believe him to be.

Now all he could think of was touching and fondling her. His body was thinking for him, and he couldn’t seem to stop it.

Her response to him was so innocent, so untutored…so alluring. It made him want to tear off her clothes, lay her down on one of the bedrolls, and bury himself inside her. He groaned as her arms tightened about his waist. He had to control himself. He had to act with restraint, to finish his demonstration of how dramatically force differed from mutual satisfaction. Then he could put her away from him.

But later. Much later. After he’d touched her all over, explored the body that had kept him awake hour after hour last night.

The layers of cloth between his palm and her breast frustrated him. Without stopping to think, he tugged loose the lace modesty piece demurely filling out the neckline of her muslin gown. She tore her mouth from his, her eyes wide, uncertain. As the scrap of lace drifted to the floor, he caressed the upper swells of her breasts and waited for her maidenly resolve to kick in.

When it didn’t, when she just sat there staring at him like a startled doe, he slid his hand inside her bodice to cup the soft weight of one breast. He had to touch her. He’d go mad if he didn’t.

That brought a response. “You shouldn’t…touch me…like that,” she breathed, though her nipple tightened into a sweet little pebble beneath his hand.

“No, I shouldn’t.” He flattened his palm against her breast and kneaded it with slow, deft strokes. “But you want me to, don’t you? You want me to.” He’d make her admit she wanted him if it was the last thing he did. Never again would she accuse him of forcing her.