“You are scum,” she said sweetly.
“And you are changing the subject. Consider then that we have established that I am scum. Let’s return to you.”
“Let’s not.”
He ignored her words. “To promises.”
“I have already told you—”
“That you are not beholden to keep a promise to me. Because I am scum. But what of your fiancé?”
“What?”
“You intend to breech your promise to him.”
“I never voiced any such promise!” Skye declared. Then, furious that she had replied to him, she turned again. “It is none of your business, you—”
“Cease. I tire of the barbs in your tongue.”
“I tire of your presence.”
“That can easily be rectified. Come, I will return you to your prison.”
“Can’t you please let me be! Have you no mercy within you?”
“I am afraid, milady, that you cannot expect ‘scum’ to come equipped with mercy.”
“Oh!” she cried, frustrated. “What is all this to you anyway?”
“I am curious.”
“Why?”
“Pure and simple, milady. I wonder if the dear fellow will or will not be willing to pay for your return.”
Skye drew her knees up beneath her, folded her hands upon them, and rested her chin there. “It matters not if he pays or not. My father will ransom me.”
“But what if your father has had a bad year? Most of his fortune comes from his holdings on the islands. It’s been a bad year for the sugar plantations.”
“Lord Cameron will pay!” she snapped.
“He will pay for you, even tarnished as you are?”
“I am not tarnished!” she snapped. Then she lowered her eyes slightly, for it was by a curious mercy on his part that she was not, and she did not wish to test that mercy. Then she remembered his touch and his eyes, and the fact that sitting was still difficult because of a certain placement of his hand upon her bare anatomy. “I am only slightly tarnished,” she amended, and he laughed softly.
“I think you are right,” he said. “I think that Cameron will pay for you, no matter how tarnished you should become. You see, he is a man who knows how to keep a promise. He was pledged as a child, but from respect for his deceased father’s wishes, I am sure that he will pay.”
She glanced at him sharply. He was watching the sea once again. She cried softly, “You know him! You know the man to whom I am engaged.”
He did not reply for a moment.
“You know him!” Skye cried once again.
“Aye, I know him.”
“How!” She hadn’t realized that she had stood, or that she had moved, until she saw that her hand rested upon his where it lay against the mighty wheel. She flushed and quickly drew away her touch. “How do you know him?”
He shrugged. “He intercedes sometimes when I return hostages. We meet on Bone Cay. I have—holdings—there.”
