Never Trust a Pirate (21 page)

She could feel his eyes on her now, and automatically she turned to look up, way up the length of him to meet his dark eyes. His rough trousers were wet, clinging to his legs, to his…

She knew she should lower her own gaze, but she couldn’t seem to summon the energy. She just sat there, frozen, staring up at him. She’d thought he was dead; she’d seen him at the bottom of the sea. And yet here he was, vibrating with equal parts energy and fury. “Did you leave the windows open?”

“No, sir,” she said, sounding perfectly meek and servile.

“And you’re going to believe her?” Mrs. Crozier shrieked. “She’s no more a maid than Queen Victoria.”

The captain shrugged, never taking his eyes from Maddy’s. “True enough,” he said. “But she didn’t leave the windows open, you did. I suggest you leave before I lose what little of my temper I have left. You wouldn’t like to see me when I’m truly angry.”

Maddy could thoroughly agree with that sentiment. She heard the door slam as Mrs. Crozier departed, and the captain continued to stare at her for a long moment before moving to the fireplace. There was no reading his dark, enigmatic gaze, and she didn’t want to try. “You did a good job of organizing my papers,” he said mildly enough. “You seem to have a talent for understanding the shipping business. Did you learn anything interesting?”

She was on a slippery slope, and she wasn’t sure she had enough of her wits about her to play this particular game. “Beg pardon, sir,” she said. It wasn’t much of an effort to sound faintly dull-witted—she was feeling slow and clumsy. “I just tried to put things together that talked about the same things. I’m not a great reader, but I tried my best.”

Again that shuttered look. “Where did you learn to read, Mary?”

Mary? Who was Mary? She felt as if she were trying to fight her way through spider webs—nothing was making sense. And then she remembered.
She
was Mary. “I learned in the parish schools, sir.”

She couldn’t tell whether he believed her or not, and desperately she glanced around her, trying to think of something to say. It was a study much like her father’s, filled with books that no one ever read, bought in bundles from the warehouses. Except these books looked different. Not the same perfect, uniform rows, everything matching, the shiny leather bindings uncracked. This was a room full of books that people had read. She glanced behind him, and saw a pile of them on the floor, one left open as if someone had set it down in the midst of reading it, and she could see it held charts of the ocean depths. Her father had taught her to read such charts, even if he himself had never opened a book if he could help it. Clearly the captain was a very different sort of man. “Where did
you
learn to read?” The moment the impertinent question was out of her mouth she followed it with a silent moan of dismay.

Fortunately he didn’t appear to notice how inappropriate such a question was. “Billy Quarrells taught me the basics, and for the rest I learned myself. Sea voyages can be very long, and you need some way to spend the time. I prefer reading.”

She wanted to know what kind of books he read. She hadn’t had time to even glance at the shelves—they had been out of the path of the rain and she’d concentrated on the papers. Did he read scientific treatises? Philosophy? Novels? She looked around her, fascinated, but he forestalled her next question.

“We can discuss literature another time. Do you have any idea why Mrs. Crozier hates you so much?”

“No, sir.”

“That, at least, I believe.”

“Sir?”

“I think you’d better go to bed,” he said, suddenly sounding weary. “It’s been a damned long day for me, and I’m not in the mood to deal with you.”

She should be alarmed. He knew she was lying, and yet he’d dismissed Mrs. Crozier, not her. She could think of only one reason he let her stay, and she should have found it terrifying. He was her enemy, a villain, he’d killed her father and stolen his ships, and if he put his hands on her she wasn’t sure she could tell him no. At least, not right now, when she felt so abysmally weak.

“Go on, then,” he said when she didn’t move. “Before I change my mind.”

Escape was a good thing, she thought, gathering her strength. There was nothing to hold on to, but she managed to pull her legs underneath her and rise unsteadily.

And suddenly he was there, in front of her, looming over her, smelling of the sea that had drenched his clothes and his hair, so close she could feel him, and she looked up, way up at him in mute despair.

“And are you ready to tell me exactly who you are, Mary Greaves?”

There were times when you fought. And times when you took the easy way out.
Maddy opened her mouth to come up with a plausible lie, when it was suddenly all too much. She felt the swirling darkness come over her, the floor rushed up to meet her, and she collapsed in a perfectly gothic faint.

CHAPTER TWELVE

L
UCA WAS SO STARTLED
by her sudden descent that he barely had time to catch her before she hit the floor. He wasn’t used to women swooning, and the one time Gwendolyn had tried it he’d caught her, dumped her on a nearby settee, and called her mother to deal with it, taking his leave. She hadn’t tried it again.

But the girl in his arms was a different matter. She was a dead weight, though not a heavy one, and he could feel her ribs beneath his hands. And then he realized the fool girl was wearing a corset, and he let out a particularly vile curse. He looked around him, but every spare inch of furniture was covered with piles of his papers. He would have no secrets left from her prying eyes, he thought grimly. Not that he gave a damn. He didn’t have any particular secrets for her to find.

He carried her from the study, kicking the door shut behind him. He’d deal with that later—first he had to get this surprisingly lightweight creature in his arms settled.

“What have you got there, Sonny Jim?” Billy Quarrells loomed up out of the darkness, and Luca didn’t know whether to be relieved or annoyed. “Been bothering the servants again?”

“Mrs. Crozier and her useless husband are leaving.”

“Best watch the silver,” Quarrells advised. “What did they do, beat the poor little thing?”

“Starved her and worked her half to death, more like,” he said.

Billy laughed. “And you such a noble gentleman!” he mocked. “I never figured you much the sort for rescuing damsels in distress.” He came closer, looking down at the girl. “Damn, but she’s a pretty one. If you like that sort of thing. You sure she’s not faking to play on your sympathies?”

Luca snorted. “The fool girl is wearing a tight corset.”

“Not familiar with the contraptions. I thought all ladies wore tight corsets.”

“Ladies do. Maids don’t. Not if they need to breathe.”

Quarrells said nothing for a long moment. “And which one is she, a lady or a maid?”

Luca looked at her. He had no idea just how deep the girl’s faint was. “Look at her hands. I doubt she’s done a day’s work in her life before she got here.”

Quarrells picked up one of her limp hands, staring at the red, blistered palm. “And I suppose you’re going to be a gentleman and carry her up to bed and remove her corset? I don’t think your darling Gwendolyn is going to like that much.”

“I’m going to loosen her corset and leave her to recover. In fact, I think I’m going to ask Gwendolyn for help. She’s offered to send some of her staff over, and she’s always disliked Mrs. Crozier.”

“She’ll be rabid if she finds this one still here,” Billy pointed out.

“I can only hope so.”

“Seen the light, have you? Glad to hear it. So exactly who is this one?”

Luca looked down at the girl in his arms. Her face was pale, her eyelashes long and sooty against her smooth skin. “Heaven only knows,” he said. He usually shared everything with Billy, but for some reason he’d kept this particular truth to himself. For one thing, he
didn’t want Miss Madeleine Russell to realize he knew who she was. He wanted her to tell him.

“And you’ve not got much acquaintance with heaven, now do you?” Billy said amiably. “What are you going to do with her?”

Luca shifted her in his arms. She was just beginning to come around, and he wasn’t about to tip his hand. “Put her to bed.” He could feel the faint tension in her body. She was awake, all right.

“You watch out, Luca. You don’t want to get free of one woman just to get tied up with another. And this one a liar to boot. Then again, all women lie.”

“Everybody lies, Billy.” He started toward the stairs, then said over his shoulder, “Pour me a glass of whiskey, will you? This shouldn’t take long.”

Billy made a noise of mock disapproval. “Shouldn’t take you long? And here I’d always thought you were such a gift to the ladies.”

“Stuff it, old man.”

Billy’s laugh followed him up the winding stairs. He was tempted, so very tempted to carry her to his own bed, to stretch her out there and finish what he’d started, remove her clothes, slowly. Ah, but he was a wiser man than that. This woman was his enemy, and the last thing he wanted to do was bed her before he knew exactly what she wanted from him.

He was going to need her to volunteer that information, and it didn’t appear that she was going to do it anytime soon.

He headed for the narrow stairs to the attic, then changed his mind. He’d lost track of what time it was, he was bone weary from his exhilarating fight with the storm that day, and he wasn’t in the mood to rescue her from bats if they decided to dive at her.

He pushed open one of the unoccupied bedrooms, half expecting it to be a disastrous dustheap. Apparently his upper-class maid had already been in there—even in the light from the hall he could see no dust, the curtains looked fresh, and the bed was turned down for the next guest to arrive.

He managed to pull back the covers before setting her down carefully, then went to turn up the gaslight just enough to see her. He sat down on the bed beside her. His trousers were crusted with dry saltwater, and he would have liked nothing more than to get out of them, but now wasn’t the time.

“It seems I have a habit of dressing and undressing you,” he said softly, reaching for the row of buttons that ran up the front her dress. “You know, this is a very ugly dress. You should have thrown this one at me this morning.”

She didn’t move, but he knew she was awake now and doing her best to pretend she wasn’t. He smiled to himself, continuing his gentle litany. “Not that that one’s much better. But then, maids don’t usually have Worth gowns and diamond pendants.” She gave a little start, and he knew he’d been right about that. Not that she probably still owned the diamonds. He’d gotten word from Wart, who’d reported that Russell’s three daughters had been stripped of almost everything, including most of their wardrobes. God only knew how they’d managed to survive the last few months.

By becoming domestic servants? Not likely—why would she just happen to end up at his house? No, she was here for a reason and he intended to find out why.

He pushed open the dress, exposing the very expensive corset. The laces were knotted, so tightly that his fingers, a bit clumsy after clutching at lines and sails in the lashing rain, couldn’t untie it. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the small knife he always carried when he went to sea and simply ran it up front of the corset, cutting through the laces so that it fell apart.

Her eyes flew open at that, and she took in a deep, desperate breath. “What did you do?” she demanded in a hoarse voice.

“Destroyed your corset.” Her skin looked crushed from the punishing contraption, and now that it was open he simply yanked it out from under her and tossed it on the floor.

“Do you know how much that thing cost?” she demanded in outrage.

“No. Do you?”

It silenced her. She lay there, dragging in deep lungsful of air. Good God, how long had the girl been struggling to breathe? All day, since she’d first fastened that instrument of torture? Finally she managed to speak. “My former mistress…” she began, but he cut her off.

“Supposedly your former mistress was Fulton’s mother, and she weighs fifteen stone at least. Come up with a better one, Mary Greaves.”