He pulled her closer, and his words curiously seemed to caress the softness of her face. “Where would you go, milady? Would you race out and join the crew, and entertain them, one and all? Or had you thought of the sea? A watery tomb, cold and eternal? I think not.” He released her suddenly. She fell back upon the bed, and his eyes were captured once again by the shadows. She did not think of fighting. She did not think of anything. She did not even think to shrink from his gaze as she lay in dishevelment, her shirts and bodice torn, so very much of her flesh bared to him. She lay back, barely daring to breathe.
She did not even move when he reached out to touch her. His fingers brushed lightly over the rise of her breasts as they spilled from her corset.
She did not even scream, for the touch was brief and gentle, and so quickly gone it might not have been.
“Do not fear, Lady Kinsdale, I will be back.”
She came up upon an elbow then, a certain courage returning to her as he whispered out her name.
“You will pay for this treatment of me!” she cried. “My father will see that you pay, my fiancé will see that you pay—”
“Will he, mam’selle?” he inquired. Hands on his hips, he cocked his head to the side.
“Of course!” Her voice only faltered slightly. “I am to marry Lord Cameron. He will see that you hang!”
“How intriguing. Well, I hope that he is a man of selfless honor, lady, for all of Williamsburg knows that you have spurned your betrothed and sworn that you will not marry.”
Skye gasped, amazed that such gossip could have reached the colony before she had arrived there herself. Then she was furious with herself because her reaction had given away so very much.
“He—he is a man of honor!” she swore quickly.
“And then again,” the pirate captain mused, ignoring her words, “I have heard that Lord Cameron is no more eager for this marriage than you are, but out of respect for your father he has not—as yet—opposed the promises made by his father when he was but a lad of ten and you were within your cradle.”
“How dare you—” she began, her voice low and shaking.
“Oh, mam’selle, I am afraid that you will soon discover that I am a man to dare anything. But for the moment, if you will be so kind as to excuse me—”
“Sir, there is no excuse for your vile existence, none at all!”
He merely smiled. “Adieu, milady.”
“Wait!” she cried.
He paused, arching a brow. “What, mam’selle?”
“You can’t—you can’t leave me in here!”
He gazed at her in startled surprise. “Lady Kinsdale, it is the finest cabin on the ship, I assure you. You will be safe.”
“Safe!” she screeched.
He grimaced at her with casual humor. “Safe—from the storm, milady. Until later,” he said. He bowed with courtly gallantry, and then he was gone. Skye heard his long strides take him to the doors. They closed behind him, and she heard the sure sound of a bolt sliding home. She was locked in, alone and wretched, and surrounded by darkness, and by fear.
She couldn’t bear it. The darkness pressed in upon her. The walls seemed to press closer and closer.
She had been trapped within the cabin on her own ship, she reminded herself.
But there had been light then. Not this terrible darkness.
It seemed that endless moments passed in which she just lay there, listening to the wind. It shrieked, it groaned, it screamed. It rose over the sounds of the slashing rain that had begun, and like a woman, it seemed to cry. The ship did not stay still for a second, but rolled and tossed and pitched and spun, and in time Skye realized that she was clinging to the sheets and knit coverlet. She lay there quaking, and when she wasn’t fearing the awful darkness, she feared the man. She shouldn’t be fearing the man, she told herself, not at that moment. She should be praying that they survive the storm, for she had never seen a night so savage.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the cabin. It was a vast space, she thought, for a ship, set high upon the top deck of his fleet ship. The cabin! She needed to think about the cabin. It was large enough for his bunk and shelves and tables and chairs and a stove, trunks, and a built-in armoire. The high square windows probably looked out on the churning sea by day, Skye thought, but now they were covered by rich velvet maroon drapes.
The glow of lightning no longer illuminated the cabin, but Skye continued to register in her mind the things that she had seen. The shelves were lined with books, the desk was polished mahagony, and the chairs were heavy oak, upholstered in brocade. It was an elegant cabin, a cabin for a captain of prestige and means and manners, not the cabin of a savage pirate.
He’d seized the ship from some poor suffering fool! she reminded herself. Indeed, he was a thief of the vilest sort, a rapist, a murderer, a scourge upon the seas.
And he would come back to this cabin.
