No Choice but Seduction (37 page)

T
HE
O
CEANUS
had come into view. Katey couldn’t recognize it from such a distance, could barely even tell that it was three-masted from the angle at which it was coming toward them, but Boyd had no trouble doing so. With rescue imminent and the danger over—the pirate ship had sailed off with cowardly haste—she sat down on the beach to wait.

Boyd spent the time making more ropes and tying up the feet of many of the pirates. He didn’t want them getting loose too soon, he explained, but he didn’t want them to never get loose, either.

“If their captain doesn’t come back later to look for them, they should have no trouble chewing through each other’s bonds with their teeth. But he’ll probably be back before dark, especially since he will have already noticed that
The Oceanus
isn’t going to give chase.”

“You’re being too kind to men who wanted to turn you into a slave.”

“You think so? There’s an arsenal of weapons here, I suppose I could kill them.”

He was only teasing. If he’d had any intention of doing that, he would have done it before he started tying them up.

But the pirates he was being so lenient with had given her quite a few real scares today, so she mumbled at him, “I don’t see why we aren’t going to take them with us and turn them over to the authorities.”

“Which authorities would that be?” he countered, obviously trying not to grin over her apparent ignorance. “We don’t know which port these fellows are based out of, and many different countries border this sea. They could be privateers with agreements from their country to operate in this area, in which case those authorities would just laugh and let them go with a pat on the hand. And I’m not joking. The Barbary Coast pirates, which
would
end up behind bars, don’t usually come this far north. They prefer easy merchant vessels that aren’t armed, since their tactics are to board quickly, subdue fast, and reap the easy rewards.”

When he was done with his task, he sat down next to her on the sand, their shoulders touching. Recalling what she’d found hidden in the bushes farther down the beach, she moved away from him. He didn’t remark on that, might not have noticed since he was staring at his ship, which was close enough now to have started lowering sails so as to stop.

“Are you ready to leave? We can use one of these boats to row out to the ship.” He’d waved toward the two pirate boats on the beach in front of them.

“Why one of these? Why not the one you used to get us here?”

She was staring at him now. Was that a flinch? No, he’d have to have a guilty conscience to flinch. But the silence grew thick enough to cut.

Her words became the knife. “You were just going to abandon it here, weren’t you? A cost of doing business, or in this case, the expendable cost of a seduction?”

“I can explain,” he finally got out.

“Of course you can. But is it going to help?”

“From the sound of your voice, probably not,” he said with a sigh.

She stood up and glared down at him. “Did you really think I wouldn’t get angry? No, wait. What you
thought
was I’d never find out that this little outing was all arranged
by you
. Does that sum it up accurately?”

He stood up as well, his posture suddenly defensive from her sarcasm. “You aren’t the only one who can lie, so don’t even think about getting angry because I took a clue from you, to arrange a little time alone with you with a lie.”

“If that was
all
you did then you might be right.
Might be
!” she added sharply. “But you did much, much more than that, didn’t you? My God, you even got me wet! What’d you do, dunk me in the water after we got here just so it would
seem
like you swam us ashore?”

“No, a wave washed over the boat on the way in, so that wasn’t necessary. Though I probably would have done exactly that!”

They were shouting at each other by this point. She was so furious she was shaking. The details he had cooked up! She was getting more and more incredulous as each one occurred to her. The list would unfold and hit the sand, it was so damn long.

“The fish?” she demanded.

“A gift of the tide as I said.”

“The convenient lens you carry around in your pocket?”

“A pretty good lie if I do say so myself,” he shot back smugly.

She bristled more. How dare
he
get angry and sarcastic? Or was this his reaction to guilt? And he had a
lot
to be guilty about.

“The pirates? Did you arrange them, too, so you could ‘save me’ and play the hero?”

“They would have been a good idea, wouldn’t they?” he shot back with a feigned thoughtful look that just scratched her bristles even more. “But pirates are rather hard to hire these days and probably aren’t the least bit trustworthy. Sorry, they weren’t part of the plan.”

He was leaving it at that. He didn’t point out that he
did
save her. Though it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference to her at the moment.

“Is this island even deserted?” She was pacing now in the sand in front of him, too angry to stand still.

“No, it’s one of the larger islands in the Balearic chain, though this corner of it isn’t settled, so it wouldn’t have been an easy trek to reach one of the villages. You’d be surprised how big an island is—if you’re on foot.”

“Of course you would have shot down the suggestion to find out if a settlement or town was nearby, if I’d made it,” she guessed.

“Of course.”

“Your ship was hiding on the other side of this island all the time, wasn’t it? So it didn’t just arrive in the nick of time. You probably told Tyrus exactly when to pick us up.” She was mortified with the thought: “My God, they all know about this, don’t they?”

“No,” he said quickly, and with no heat now. “Most of them think we just went on an outing for the day.”

“Oh, sure, so I went on an outing in my bedclothes?!” she replied scathingly.

Looking down at her robe, he blanched. She realized he’d missed that detail, or he just hadn’t thought that far ahead in his elaborate scheme.

But before she remarked on that, he told her, “Put these on.”

It was a good thing he said it first, because he then started to strip off his belt. For one brief second, what they had done on the island, together, before the pirates showed up, filled her mind and made her nearly gasp. But she was far too angry right now to let those memories intrude, and he was merely handing her his belt to wear. He gave her his coat, too.

“Your belt buckle is too big,” she mumbled after fastening the belt around her waist. “It’s obvious that it belongs to a man.”

“Slide the buckle around to your back, the coat will cover it. There, now it looks like you’re wearing a dress instead of nightclothes, albeit a thin one. But considering the warm weather, thin is pretty normal around here.”

It didn’t really look like a dress, but as long as she wasn’t looked at closely, it would do. Except for anyone who had helped him.

“Tyrus knows, doesn’t he?” she gasped, red-cheeked with embarrassment.

Boyd nodded. “If it helps, I had to twist his arm and call in every favor he owes me. He was
not
going to assist me in this. He doesn’t handle secrecy very well. And I had to convince him he’d be marrying us when we returned to the ship, or he never would have agreed.”

“That
isn’t
happening!”

“Obviously,” Boyd replied with a sigh.

His explanation hadn’t helped at all. If anything, it had stoked the fire more. And now she had mortified embarrassment to add to it.

“I can’t believe I bought that ridiculous sleepwalking story even for a minute. No, actually, I can’t believe you even came up with it. If you’re going to lie, at least make it sound reasonable.”

“I suppose I should have asked for lessons first.”

She gasped.

He looked immediately contrite and said quickly, “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t believe you are. In fact, I’ll never believe you again. You, sir, can’t be trusted! You have let this lust of yours cloud your judgment far too many times. But this! This is beyond redemption! And how did you get me here without my waking?” She drew in a sharp breath with the realization. “You drugged me, didn’t you? With what? How?”

“Don’t be absurd. Dr. Philips might make me a potent sleeping powder occasionally when I need it, but it didn’t even occur to me to use that. I wouldn’t do that to you, Katey. You have my word.”

“Then how did you accomplish this?”

“It wasn’t planned. I thought about it, certainly, after I suggested that we go ashore together and you flatly refused. But there was no way to get you ashore without your waking, so I gave up the notion—until you imbibed so much wine last night you don’t even remember stumbling out of Tyrus’s cabin. Admit it. You don’t remember, do you?”

She didn’t, but she still didn’t believe him. His cheeks had turned too red at the mention of that sleeping powder. “I wouldn’t remember, would I, if you’d slipped that powder in my glass?” she said sharply.

“Damnit, it would have been much easier and much less nerve-racking for me if I had, but I didn’t!”

“Liar!”

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Do you deserve that courtesy?”

“You asked for an explanation. Caught red-handed as it were, why would I bother with anything but the truth right now? So listen to me carefully this time. I did not drug you! I didn’t fill your glass with wine, either, you did. I wasn’t even sitting next to you. I
did
nudge Tyrus to order more wine when I saw that you’d already emptied the bottle by your plate. I wasn’t nearly as drunk yet myself, so I recognized a golden opportunity when it presented itself. And you even drank a quarter of another bottle before you marched off to find your bed. Without even a good-night, mind you. That’s how tipsy you were.”

Since she couldn’t deny that, and she
did
remember pouring herself several glasses of wine, she didn’t immediately call him a liar again and scoffed instead, “What was nerve-racking? You wouldn’t have done it if you thought I was going to wake.”

“It was a chance I was willing to take. If you had woken, I knew it would have taken days for you to get over your anger—”

“Make that years—no, centuries!”

“Which is why I was so glad you didn’t wake. I was sure you would when that wave doused us, but you didn’t. All you did was snuggle closer to me in my lap.”

She blushed furiously, hearing that. She wasn’t responsible for what she did in her sleep.

To put him back on the defensive she said, “If you aren’t lying, why did you get so red-faced at the mention of that sleeping powder?”

“Not for the reason you think.”

Bright color spread up his cheeks again. Her brow knitted suspiciously, yet her curiosity had kicked in, too. “Why do you take it?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, looking even more embarrassed.

“Why?”

“It really isn’t important—”

“It is to me. I want to know why you’re looking
and
sounding guilty.”

“It’s because I suffer seasickness. There, are you happy? That’s something my family doesn’t even know, Katey. It’s why I don’t captain my own ship. It affects me for a good four days every time my ship casts off. It’s why you won’t see me for the next four days when we sail out of here.”

“Four days? Forever is more like it. Do you really think I believe that? The truth now.”

“That is the truth. And it’s why I got desperate enough to do this.”

The word
desperate
made her think of his lust. She had
thought
he’d risked his life jumping overboard to save her, that she owed him for that. If that had never occurred to her, would she have instigated their lovemaking today? She didn’t know, and she was too angry to figure it out.

“All of this so you could make love to me?” she choked out, glaring at him.

“If I just wanted to bed you, I wouldn’t have brought you to shore. I was in your room, Katey, and you
were
inebriated. It would have been a simple matter to make love to you there. Hell, you probably wouldn’t even have remembered it come morning! But that’s not why I gave us this day together. It’s because I was spending more time getting sick in my cabin than I was courting you.”

“Courting me?” she sputtered. “You call blurting out ‘marry me’ courting?”

“Since you’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to marry and the only one I’ve ever
blurted
that at, I guess I need lessons in courting, too.”

“I’m beginning to think you need lessons in life. I see now why Anthony Malory referred to you and your brothers as barbarians.”

“He and James do that deliberately, to get a rile out of us.”

She snorted. “Don’t kid yourself. In your case, it’s absolutely true!”

She definitely struck a nerve that time. Tight-lipped, he started to reply, then saw that his crew was about to lower a boat in the water. He waved them off that notion, marched down the beach, and dragged the
Oceanus
skiff out of the bushes.

Having followed him, Katey heard him say, “There, are you happy? We’ve saved the damned boat.”

She wasn’t happy. She was about as unhappy as she could be. And during the short ride to the ship, having expended her anger, she was choking back her hurt feelings. Boyd was silent, too.

But before they climbed aboard, he did say to her, “Do you really wish today hadn’t happened?”

She didn’t answer him.

Chapter Forty-One