“I said, as you wish. You or Davey. Someone must take the blame.”
He turned from her as the body of the dead pirate was dragged away. They both stared as it was hoisted overboard. Then she stared at him again in amazement and shock.
“You wouldn’t! You wouldn’t dare tie me to the mast and bring a lash against me!”
He smiled very slowly. “With the greatest pleasure, milady.”
Amazed, she gasped.
“Sir!” His attention was distracted as a seaman came to him, saluting sharply. “The fire is out, and it did no damage except within the hold. It is safe below.”
“Very good,” Lord Cameron said.
“Mr. Blair is prepared to toss the grappling hooks.”
“Fine. Call the order, and we’ll break away. I shall be at the wheel with all haste.”
He turned back to Skye, but she had already intended to push past him. He stopped her, bringing his sword tip to her throat. She stood still, her chin raised, her temper soaring, and the whole of her quivering with outrage. His sword remained within her hand. She did not lift it. She intended to keep it within her own possession.
“This matter will wait,” he said softly. His sword fell and she flinched anew, for his fingers came to her cheek, touching a spot where the blood of the pirate marred her pale flesh. “I’ll see that you are brought water to bathe.”
“You needn’t bother—”
“Yes, I need bother,” he said simply. “Do you need an escort, madame? Or can you manage on your own? I am afraid that I am growing shorthanded, so I would prefer—”
She swung away from him. At that moment, she was only too eager to reach the haven of her own cabin.
She hurried beneath the deck. The smell of smoke had faded away, and gunpowder no longer turned the air to gray. She heard commands shouted, and the heavy footsteps of men as they ran about. At the foot of the steps she paused, clutching her heart. She closed her eyes and listened. A mast had been hit and sailors hacked away at the wood and the canvas sail to cast the damaged pieces overboard. Other men raced about to raise the mainsail higher and catch the wind as they shoved away from the pirate vessel.
She made her way down the hall and hurried to her own cabin. She slammed the door. Once inside, she keenly felt the blood upon her. She started to tremble anew. Cameron! He had been so cold and cool and so damned competent! He had mocked and taunted, and she had been certain that he had meant to send her merrily upon her way with Stikes. But that had never been his intent. He had saved her with a swift and deadly cunning.
She sank down upon her bunk, but then she could not bear the clothes she wore. With a cry she rose and tore her gown in her haste to strip it away. She stood in her shift only, shivering, when there came a knock upon the door.
She grasped the coverlet from her bunk and wrapped it around herself, then threw the door open. It was not Davey who stood there or any man she knew. It was a graying and brawny seaman who carried a heavy brass tub of water. “Lady Cameron, may I?” He indicated the cabin, where he would set down his heavy load.
“Don’t call me that!” she charged him.
He shrugged and came through the doorway, setting down the brass pot. There was a sponge within it and steam rose high. It was a small bath, but she could just stand within it and sponge water over herself, and she could not help but long to do so.
“There you be, Lady Cam—” He hesitated with another shrug. “There you be, milady.”
“Thank you,” she told him. He left her. She stripped off her shift and found the sponge and soap within the water. She scrubbed herself as if she were covered in mud, and still she could feel the blood. She did so again, and again, until the water grew so cold that she stood there shivering.
There was another knock upon her door. She hastily dried and slipped into her shift and dragged the coverlet about herself again, then drew open her door. The graying seaman was back with a fine fluted glass dangling from his sausage-sized fingers and a bottle in his hand.
“Dark Caribbean rum, milady. His lordship thought as how you might need a swallow.”
“His lordship is so right,” Skye muttered. She heard the closing of a cabin door just down the hall. His lordship! She trembled, thinking of the man. Her temper burned, and her pride.
“Aye, and he’ll see you soon, he says.”
“Will he?” she muttered, and the shivering seized her again. Why was this man here? Why was he serving her? “Where is—where is young Davey?” she demanded.
The brawny man shook his head most sorrowfully. “Preparing to repent his ways, milady, if you know what I mean.”
“No!” she gasped. He couldn’t have! Cameron couldn’t have taken that poor boy and lashed him for her appearance on the deck!
But he could have. She remembered the cool way that he had goaded Stikes and wrested her from the pirate, and she was convinced that the man calling himself her husband could do anything at all.
