“Of course, you will pay.”
“I have gold.”
He cast his legs over the side of the bed and slipped into his breeches. Standing, he tied them, then sought about for his hose. His bronze chest glimmered in the candlelight, rippling muscle defined and fascinating.
He sat again in a chair before the mantel and donned his hose and boots and buckled his black knee breeches. Skye watched him in silence all the while. She waited. Then, exasperated, she repeated herself. “I have gold! Are you going to help me or not?”
He stood and found his light linen shirt upon the foot of the bed. He drew it over his head, then looked at her with a slow lazy grin and a long, cunning assessment. “I have a lot of gold already, madame. I am not just a raping, plundering, murdering sea-sliming pirate, but I am a very successful raping, plundering, murdering, sea-sliming pirate. I don’t really need your gold.”
“You have to help me!”
“Why?”
“Because, because…”
“Because you’re a damsel in distress?” he suggested. He came toward her, taking her hands, keeping his eyes upon her as he kissed both sets of her knuckles. “Ah, because I was the first lover you had ever known! Women have soft spots for such things, don’t they?”
She jerked her hands away from him and lashed out at him. He caught her fists and, laughing, drew her against him. He held her tight and met her eyes.
“Let go of me!” she said.
“You came to me.”
She didn’t know if he referred to the night now, or if he talked about that night in a different lifetime in his paradise at Bone Cay. The night when the tropical breezes had swept through the windows.
“Please, let go of me.” She hesitated. “Whether you help me or not, you mustn’t stay around here, don’t you know that? Spotswood—Spotswood knows that you are here.”
“Does he?” The Hawk seemed unalarmed.
“Yes. He’ll hang you.”
“I do not need gold.”
“Please, you must—”
“Ah, yes. I must.”
“And you must hurry. My husband—”
“Why, madame, didn’t you go to your husband with this request? You told me yourself that he was brave and bold and competent.”
“But he is not a pirate!”
The Hawk’s lashes fell over his silver eyes, hiding his thoughts from her. “Not a pirate, you say?”
“No,” she murmured.
His arms tightened around her. “But what if he were?”
“He is not! You can find Logan, I know that you can. Roc could fight him, but he could not negotiate. He could not draw upon support from others in a battle. Please…”
He still held her too tight. She could feel the length of him, hard, determined.
“I do know where Logan is,” he murmured.
“What?”
“I know where he is. I heard of it when I arrived here.”
