The vision knew his name? He stared at heras if she might escape if he didn’t hold her with his gaze. “Am Ihallucinating?”
“If you were, how would asking me, help?”She laughed at her own wit.
Stunned by the truth of that logic, hefumbled with his recollection. Had they been introduced? Her voicehad a sweet, innocent quality… “Alexandra?”
She nodded. Good God. How could he havethought the breathtakingly beautiful woman standing over him was ahoary old crone? When he pulled her out of the hold, he’d been toobusy with fighting Damiano and hadn’t looked at her.
No wonder Damiano chose to suffer a lashingand loss of profit to have her. If he were not a gentleman, he’dhave torn down the wall himself.
A blush stole across her sun-kissed cheeks.“I had to divest my skirts and overcoat when I dove in the ocean tosave you.”
Nicholas jerked his head back. “You dove offthe ship? In that storm?”
She rubbed her hand over a long thigh, anunconscious act of smoothing out skirts that no doubt lingered atthe bottom of the ocean. “When the mast fell, you were pitched intothe sea…trapped in the rigging. I freed you…tied you to floatingwreckage…the storm pushed us to this place.” She concentrated onher toe, liberating a shell from the sand.
He frowned, taking in the extraordinaryevents since his imprisonment aboard theSantanas.“I amindebted to you.”
The lacy fringe of her lashes lifted and hefelt as if a thread went taut between them, connecting them, alonetogether on this wretched beach.
“You’ve had another knock on the head. Iworried if you would regain consciousness or become demented.”
“I assure you, I have all of my wits.”
She laughed at his grimness, picked up theshell she had unearthed, waded into the sea and filled it withwater. “You were too heavy to drag up the beach, so I covered youwith palm fronds to shield you from the sun.”
She ripped off the hem of her chemise, kneltbeside him, and washed his face. Her fingers trembled. He flinchednot only from her touch but the sight of long shapely calves.
“You have a gash across your forehead but itwill heal.”
“I feel like dying.”
“I’ll decide when you die, Lord Rutland, notyou. Although, I should have let the sea have you when you kept upthat witless fight with Damiano.”
He glanced around. “Damiano?”
She shuddered. “The mast cut him intwo.”
“It was no more than the swine deserved. Arethere any other survivors?” Nicholas started to rise, but fell backagainst the log.
She brushed her long golden mane behind hershoulders and peered toward the west. “I walked the beach for milesand didn’t see evidence of any others. Not even a drift of flotsamfrom theSantanasto mark its existence. Not that I wouldwelcome Damiano, Capitan Diogo or his crew’s hellish company. Idesire no remembrance of them.”
He attempted to rise again. She waylaid himby taking hold of his face with both her hands, and rubbing herthumbs along his jaw. He felt as though he were being stroked bythe wings of an angel. She looked like an angel too, damn it all,with those enchanting turquoise eyes that matched the sea. He likedher cool hands upon his face, but it made it damned hard toconcentrate on what to do about this predicament. She had no ideahow her touch seemed to make him a bumbling idiot. Perhaps he wasdemented.
Maybe, if he didn’t look at her mouth againhe’d be able to think. But damn if he didn’t look anyway. It wasimpossible to not look at those full luscious lips that were meantto be kissed.
She withdrew her hands. “I’ll scout aroundand find something to make a poultice.”
“You know of such things?”
She sat back on her heels. “You find itremarkable that a thief would have healing knowledge?”
“We are on equal footing, Miss Elwins. Wehave survived thus far and will need each other to continue to doso.”
She smiled with his concession and her facetook on a mesmerizing radiance. She leaned over to pick up thecoconut she dropped, giving him a tantalizing view of her fullbreasts and rosy nipples. He cleared his throat, listening to thethudding of her smashing through the grassy husk, pounding theinner shell on a rock until it cracked open. She offered the crudevessel to him. He lifted the sweet water into his parched mouth,amazed by her resourcefulness, from diving off the ship, cuttingthrough rigging, covering him with palm fronds and gatheringcoconuts.
“Eat the coconut meat inside,” sheordered.
Not accustomed to taking orders, he slanteda look at her.
