“You cannot do that.” Her indignation was real. “You can’t toss me around as if I were a piece of baggage.”
“And yet, I so obviously can. You forget that this ship is under my command and you are to follow my instructions.” He was pleased she did not back away from him. Still, she deserved this lesson in discipline. “That’s what you agreed to when you took the responsibility of being one of the crew. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that the way you wanted it?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “But you did not order me not to go up there. You only ordered me to come down.”
“An order you disobeyed.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “I was wrong. What are you going to do?”
He ignored her question. His voice softened when he spoke, carrying only a hint of his displeasure. “What did you think you were doing anyway?”
“I was fixing the sail.”
“And did you?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t it occur to you that you could have been killed climbing up there?”
“The only danger I was in was from this damn dress!” Her voice and her eyes dared him to say otherwise.
He took the dare and placed the blame squarely on her. “Then you should have known better than to attempt the rigging dressed as you were.”
“Perhaps. The risk seemed warranted so I took it.” She gathered the folds of her dress in her arm and moved off the bed, taking a small amount of pleasure in the way his eyes dropped to her bare legs as she brushed past him. She dropped the material and crossed the cabin. She sat on top of the table, bringing her feet to rest on the seat of a chair. “There was another alternative I considered briefly. Since you refused to give me the trousers I requested I thought perhaps you would rather that I make the climb with no clothes at all.”
When Alexis moved from the bed Cloud lay back, his hands folded behind his head, one leg stretched over the length of the bunk while the other hung lazily over the edge, his foot resting on the deck.
“Well, Cloud?” she asked impatiently when he did not rise to the bait.
He sighed. “I would have rather you hadn’t attempted the climb at all, Alex. But you know I find the thought of you naked very appealing. That is what you really wanted to hear, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she admitted miserably, feeling defeated that he would understand and express it so simply, easily, as if his desire was the most natural aspect of his personality. Why could he respond so easily to her needs as a woman, needs that only he made her aware of, but refused to respond to the other facets that made her who she was? Why didn’t he see the things that made her want to be free, to go on with her life in the best way she could? She tried to read his face, wondering if he understood more than he was letting on, but she could see nothing in the immobile features. Nothing made sense to her. How could he want only part of her? How could he accept her body so easily and not the rest of her? Then she remembered he really had not accepted her body, even when she offered it. Did he want something more from her? Alexis did not know the answer and she avoided his gaze for the first time since he’d brought her into the cabin.
Cloud did not notice Alexis’s lapse into silence. His mind was taking another turn entirely. “I was wondering, Alex. Wouldn’t you have been afraid of what the crew might have done if they had seen such a sight?”
“Your men would not have dared to touch me.”
Interested, Cloud raised his head slightly to see her better. “You sound certain of that. Why wouldn’t they?”
“Because they think I am your woman. And you confirmed that in a grand manner when you carried me from the rigging. It was a barbaric display of your strength and my weakness. You couldn’t have been more effective if you had carried a club and dragged me away by my hair!”
He had to laugh at her description. There was truth in what she said. “But what would make them think you were mine in the first place?”
“The same thing that makes you think I will come to you. Gratitude.” This last word left a bad taste in her mouth. “They think since you brought me aboard you saved my life. From there they think I will demonstrate my thanks in your bed.”
Cloud considered what she said briefly. “That may be what my men think, but I doubt it. Once you know them better you will understand that. And Alex,” he continued gravely, more serious than she had ever known him, “I do not think it at all. I don’t want you in my bed out of gratitude. I don’t want you as part of a bribe, a trade, or as thanks. I don’t expect you to be thankful for what I’ve done to you. Not while you are my prisoner.”
Alexis raised her eyebrows in surprise. She leaped from the table, knocking the chair over and ran to the bunk. She knelt on the deck by his side and placed her hands on his chest. “Then you do understand. You know what it’s been like for me since I found I was being taken away. Please, Cloud. Take me back. You must. Don’t you see, if you really understand that I’m a prisoner here, you must release me.”
Cloud held her hands a moment, letting the energy in her trembling fingers pass from her into him. When her fingers were still he removed them from his chest and sat up, brushing a golden curl from her expectant face as he did so. His finger traced a line from the corner of her eye across her cheek and finally touched her lips lightly. Her eyes dropped away from his but he caught her chin and gently forced her to look up at him. When he held her eyes with his own he gave her his answer.
“No,” he whispered softly, firmly. It was his final answer. He could not let her go.
She nodded her head slowly as if accepting that he had no other choice. Cloud released her face and stood up. She was still kneeling at his feet when he became the captain once more. “Danty, you will have to see about my dinner soon and later you can polish my boots. See Mr. Landis about getting something more appropriate for you to wear. He should be able to find something suitable. I will inform the others you are permitted to climb the rigging as long as there is a good reason for it.”
Alexis stood, tossing back the braid which had fallen over her shoulder. “I’ll see to everything,” she responded evenly putting the last few minutes out of her mind. They walked out of the cabin, he going first, and parted in the companionway.
Alexis helped Forrest in the galley until almost everything had been prepared. With his promise that he would find her when the captain’s dinner was ready, she went off to look for Landis. She found him on the upper deck, supervising the cleaning of the guns.
