It was a cool morning, and she had no cloak. Shivering slightly now, she paused on deck. She saw Liam instantly: He stood on the forecastle, gazing out toward the rising, bloodred sun. He was cloakless, wearing naught but his linen shirt and his breeches and his thigh-high boots. He was bathed in the warm, glowing sunrise. The orange light turned his hair a fiery shade of gold. His profile was spectacular. It took her breath away.
Katherine wanted to ignore the ache rising so rapidly within her.
She looked away from him, miserable, despairing. Since he had left the cabin—and her—the first night, she had not been able to do anything other than to think of him and his body and his touch. Her thoughts were shameless; she was shameless.
But he did not want her as much as she wanted him. Otherwise he would have come to her last night—or even sooner, during the day.
Katherine closed her eyes briefly, flooded with deeper despair. She had no choice now but to recognize fully the extent of her passion for him, a man she despised, a man she could never respect, a man who had chosen murder and robbery for his trade. She could not resist him, and worse, she wanted him, passionately. And now she was his prisoner. He would use her when the urge took him, and she would enjoy it, even though she was married to another man. He would use her when he chose, as hechose, and her defiance would be a sham, a facade. Until he tired of her and freed her.
But then, of course, she would have nowhere to go. No man would want a pirate’s whore. Hawke would divorce her. There would be no other marriage for her. No marriage, no children. Katherine supposed that she would be able to join her father in his prison in Southwark. Or would he reject her, too?
Katherine bit her lip, thinking about how, once, Liam had asked her to be his wife. Yet somehow it had come to this, instead, with her his whore, his toy.
“This is where I live,” Liam said from behind her.
Katherine jumped, not having heard him approach. She found herself ensnared in his dark, brooding gray gaze. With difficulty she looked away, but not before she had noticed the growth of beard on his jaw, and the full, chiseled set of his mouth.
Acutely aware of how close he stood beside her, aware that, if she shifted slightly, her skirts would brush his thigh, Katherine clasped her hands together, to keep them from shaking. “Earic Island. Guy told me.” She was careful not to look at him, but she found it hard to breathe normally. Memories of the other night haunted her. “I hope you did not choose the island’s name?”
“I did.”
She started, her gaze flying to his. “Why?”
He shrugged. “Is it not obvious? My living comes from spilling blood—yet I have never paid a single penny of blood money to anyone.”
Katherine inhaled. And she saw sadness in his eyes—but surely it was an illusion, caused by the play of shadows and light cast by the dawn. She turned to face the bloodred sun, was almost blinded by it. She squinted, determined to see the island.
And she was disappointed. It was a pile of soaring rocks, shrouded in the morning mist, bathed in the eerie tangerine light. It seemed naught but a pirate’s lair. It did not seem capable of sustaining any form of life. Katherine was about to say so when she spotted the old stone castlecarved onto one side of the island, high up on a rock mountain. “Does grass grow there? Are there trees?”
“On the southern end there is a forest filled with game.” He added, “But hunting is not allowed.”
She turned her head sharply, their gazes colliding.
“I will not allow the game to be depleted. All victuals are brought in by ship from Belfast.”
“Why do you live here?” Katherine asked. “In such a forsaken place?”
He did not look at her. “Where would you have me live?”
For the briefest of moments, Katherine had forgotten who and what he was. There was nothing more to say, and she turned toward the orange sun—and the rock island rising up out of the swirling mists and the cool gray sea.
Katherine paused on the threshold of the great hall. Liam spoke to his steward, and she saw other servants, both male and female, hovering at the hall’s other end, in the entrance that undoubtedly led outside to the kitchen. The hall was cold, dark, and clearly very old. She had been given a cloak before they disembarked, and she clutched it to her, glancing around.
She did not know what she had expected, but she had not expected this dank, dismal place. Although she had been raised at Askeaton, which was also a medieval manor, it had been luxuriously furnished; it had been bright and cheerful. Katherine could not understand why this was his home. The cabin on his ship had boasted every luxury, from the fine wood paneling on the walls to the silver-plated nightstool, but this, this huge room was nearly bare.
A manservant had stoked up the fire in the large hearth. Katherine moved to stand beside it. Other than the ancient trestle table, the benches, the two chairs, and the scarred sideboard, there were no other furnishings in the room, just a single, faded tapestry. The wind moaned incessantly, as the castle was perched atop the island. And Katherine could feel a draft. She could not imagine anyone spendinga full winter here. She wondered if this place ever saw the summer, ever saw the sun.
She was aware of Liam coming to stand behind her. “I will show you to our chamber, upstairs.”
Her mind protested his use of the word “our.” “You’ve gotten what you wanted. Why do you not set me free now and be done with it?”
He stared into her eyes, then at her trembling mouth. “I have hardly gotten what I want from you, Katherine.” Abruptly he turned and strode away.
Tingles raced up her spine. Katherine finally followed him, torn, at once reluctant and curious. She couldn’t decipher the meaning of his last words. He had her virtue. What more could there be?
Despite herself, she imagined endless, torrid nights of shared passion.
On the third story there were but two other chambers. Clearly no additions had been made to the castle in the centuries since it had been built. Liam pushed open a heavy and scarred oak door and then ducked to enter the lord’s chamber. Katherine was greeted by a large, but plain bed, covered with furs, neither postered nor canopied. Hides covered the windows, and the room was exceedingly dark. Liam lit a taper. Katherine’s dismay increased. He had at least twenty beautiful rugs on the floor of his cabin, and although she was used to rushes, in the past two days she had grown accustomed to the feel of wool beneath her feet. Why did he not have a single rug in here? Why was there no table, no chair? There was naught but a single chest at the foot of the bed, one nightstool, and the oversize fireplace. From his ship’s cabin she had surmised that he liked to read, but she saw not a single tome anywhere in the room.
