I knew I was tired but hadn’t comprehended the extent of my exhaustion until I fell asleep at the dining table while Lieutenant Flemming treated the abrasions on my wrists.
He woke me with a hand on my shoulder, shaking me gently. “Madam?
You should lie down.”
His soft English accent matched his demeanor. White strands streaked the roots of his blond hair, making him appear older than his forty years. That was my guess, anyway. He didn’t talk much.
Ointments and bandages gathered, he stepped out without another word, leaving me alone in the dimly lit cabin.
I ate some roasted meat and biscuits to appease my grumbling stomach.
Then I padded into Ashley’s sleeping quarters.
Behind the privacy screen, I removed Priest’s shirt and held it to my nose. It no longer smelled like him, but I couldn’t bring myself to discard it.
Using the soap and water in the basin, I scrubbed the blood from the linen and hung it to dry.
Various supplies filled the cabinet, such as fragrant oils for hair, ambrosial salve for skin, an oxbone brush with horsetail hairs for cleaning teeth, and cutting instruments for whiskers. Did Ashley actually use the latter? After a full day, he still had naught a bristle on his unshaven face.
I washed my hair and body with his cleansers, taking care with the jade stone at my throat. Then I donned the gentleman’s nightgown, swimming in the linsey-woolsey as I crawled beneath the counterpane on his bed.
The stuffing was soft enough, the distance between sides wide enough for two. But I felt more secure tucking myself against the wall of the alcove and pulling the blankets up around me.
The ship rocked lazily, lulling me into the space between sleep and wakefulness. But I couldn’t turn my mind off. Couldn’t quell the churning in my stomach. Couldn’t ignore the cedar scent of an unfamiliar man embedded in the mattress.
Slumber came and went in restless fits. The passing hours chased the moon out of the frame of the open balcony.
Whenever Priest arrived, what would I hear first? The hissing sails of his ship? The battle drums of HMS Blitz? The command of Ashley’s voice from the speaking trumpet?
Something sounded in the dining cabin. The click of the door. Then footsteps.
My breath stalled, my entire being straining, listening to that gait. I recognized it—the confident, unhurried heel to toe rhythm.
How unnerving. I barely knew this man. He wasn’t the highlight of my life, something I looked forward to seeing. He’d been the darkest part of one day. So why was I lying here, focused on the cadence of his approach as if I’d been awake all this time, waiting for him?
I shut my eyes as he entered the sleeping chamber. His movements stilled on the threshold, and I imagined him squinting at my prone form in the darkness.
With my shoulder pressed against the back wall of the bed’s alcove, I’d left too much room on the mattress beside me, like an invitation to join me. But it was too late to rectify that mistake.
He was already moving, stepping near the armoire. Drawers opened and closed. Fabric rustled. Leather creaked. The glide of laces emitted soft, rapid sounds.
And there went his clothing.
With my eyes sealed shut, I feared what I would find if I opened them.
If he believed I was asleep, maybe he would go away. The mattress dipped, canting beneath his weight.
My lungs tried to push a gasp past my lips. But I measured my breathing and kept the rise and fall of my chest even, subtle, mimicking sleep.
He stretched out beside me and adjusted the coverlet, making no attempt to be stealthy. The heat of him alone could’ve woken the dead. With less than a foot of space between us, I felt his body warmth as if he were pressed against me.
I wanted to sleep alone.
Except I’d done exactly that for two years, and it had been miserable.
Perhaps I wanted to sleep alone with someone like Ashley Cutler. But that didn’t make sense. I would’ve never considered such a thing with Madwulf MacNally or Lieutenant Flemming or any other lout on this ship.
Priest was the only one I’d ever fallen asleep with. The only one I ever
wanted to fall asleep with.
Until he hurt me.
I cracked open an eye and glimpsed the bold squareness of Ashley’s nude back. Opening both eyes, I traced the line of his strong neck, the muscled slope of his shoulder, the bulge of his bicep. Exquisite. Flawless. Mercy God, I truly had a weakness for cruelty wrapped in a beautiful package.
The residual moonlight blanketed his nude body in shades of gray and trapped puddles of shadow where his lean waist met the edge of the coverlet. He was infinitely more desirable to behold when lying at ease in nothing but his skin rather than standing at attention in a gold-embellished uniform.
Knowing his nudity continued beneath the counterpane, I couldn’t have looked away if I wanted to. I should have chastised myself for inspecting him so closely, and I would have if my brain hadn’t abandoned me.
“Go to sleep.” His thick, rumbling voice stopped my heart. I glared at his back. “You’re naked.”
“It’s how I sleep.”
“There’s a woman in this bed.” “It’s my bed.”
“But—”
“Quiet.”
I pressed my lips together. Until I imagined his unclothed body tossing up against me during the night. “I don’t know what to do with this.”
He expelled a heavy breath, and I could practically see those aristocratic nostrils flaring.
With a heave, he rolled over and faced me.
I wasn’t prepared for his mouth to land so close to mine. His soft breaths kissed my lips, and his dark blue eyes gave me their full attention. They were the eyes of a man who directed, oversaw, and controlled everything. Eyes that command a woman’s soul.
“I’ve never slept beside someone who I wasn’t involved with… amorously.” I swallowed. “This… We’re not amorous.”
“No, we’re not.” He shifted to turn away. “Wait.”
He waited.
“What will your soldiers think?” I didn’t care a whit about my reputation, but I needed to understand the ramifications. “If they believe you’ve succumbed to a lady pirate’s sexual prowess, won’t you lose your hard-won status in the Royal Navy?”
I believed him when he said he was the only one standing between Madwulf and me. A mutiny among Ashley’s crew would strip me of that protection.
“I’m not commanding a pirate ship,” he said. “This isn’t a democracy. No one on this vessel has the rank to question me, especially not my unruly prisoners.”
“Just so. This prisoner doesn’t wish to be molested by her captor while she sleeps.”
“Don’t look for lust where none exists.” He returned to his side, giving me his back.
“Then don’t jab me with your erection.” “Stop talking.”
“Do you always get hard when you truss up and spank rabid animals?” “One more word, and I’ll gag your impudent mouth.”
Another threat. I was certain he would follow through on it and grow hard as a rock from the result. The man was in severe denial, which served me well. For now.
In the back of my mind, I understood the likelihood of this situation turning in a direction I dreaded.
Much to my dismay, being rescued by my vicious, relentless husband was my best option. But the odds weren’t in his favor. He couldn’t just sneak aboard a first-rate ship of the line and carry me off unnoticed. The approach of the smallest, fastest sloop under his command would be spotted.
The terrifying truth was I didn’t know how he would battle the heaviest armed warship in the high seas. I trusted that he would try with every breath in his body, but I couldn’t wager my life on his success.
Ashley intended to deliver me to England to stand trial, where I would be convicted and hanged. That was a fact.
But I held the power to change it.
As a healthy adult woman, I’d won many hearts accidentally.
I had a month to win Ashley’s heart intentionally.
I’d thought of this before I’d taken the plunge off Jade’s gunwale.
Before I’d met the unsmiling, unfeeling commodore.
A heartless man couldn’t fall in love. But part of me hoped that a warm, squishy, sensitive organ beat beneath his cold veneer. If a heart was there, I could take it, turn it, and use it to escape.
But the logical part had already considered a third plan.
If I couldn’t reach the commodore’s heart, I could most definitely reach between his legs.
While I wasn’t skilled in fluttering demure eyelashes or wagging my hips like a coquette, I knew how to lace myself into a bosom-revealing gown and touch a man until his eyes crossed and his brain exploded.
A sweaty tumble beneath the blankets with Ashley Cutler wouldn’t convince him to free me. But if he believed I carried his babe in my womb, that would change everything.
He wouldn’t send me to the gallows.
Because he wouldn’t execute his own child.
Win his heart or conceive his baby.
For either of these plans to work, I needed to get close to him. Close enough to take his seed into my body.
As I stared at his beautifully sculpted back in the darkness, it shouldn’t have felt like such a hardship. He was a gorgeous man, and I’d done worse things to survive.
If I succeeded in bedding him, I would be betraying the husband who betrayed me. The thought made me sick because, God confound me, I still loved the king of libertines.
But if I did nothing, I would hang. I would die. It wasn’t the best option. If Priest were here, I knew what he would say.
The crazy son of a bitch would tell me to lie, steal, cheat, maim, kill, or fuck whomever I needed to stay alive.
As I closed my eyes and drifted to sleep, I heard his growly Welsh accent in my ear.
Survive, my love. No matter what.
