Sea Fire (15 page)

Jon turned over command of the ship to Mick Frazier, one of the few on board who knew what to do with it. He issued some instructions about their course and the correct amount of canvas to carry. Then he went to his cabin.

Cathy had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion in the midst of her useless struggles. She awoke abruptly when Jon came through the door. He closed it after him, leaning rather heavily against it for a moment while his eyes adjusted to the gloom. From where she lay, Cathy could smell the odor of liquor that clung to him. So he had been drinking, had he, while she had lain here suffering? But as he moved toward her, she could detect no outward signs of drunkenness except for the too-bright glitter of his gray eyes.

“Do you think that you could untie me?” she requested tartly as he stood towering over the bunk. “Now that you’re here to make certain I don’t escape, of course!”

Jon seemed undecided for a moment, then sat down on the edge of the bunk. He said nothing as his hands moved to loosen the knot that
tied her hands to the frame. That done, Cathy lowered her arms, not even trying to suppress a slight groan. If he felt guilty about the discomfort he had caused her, well and good! He deserved worse than that!

It took him a little longer to undo the rope binding her wrists. When he finally succeeded, Cathy flexed her fingers, then shook them. Finally she spread her arms wide. Pins and needles shot through her entire upper body, making her gasp.

“Arms asleep?” Jon asked with what could almost have been gruff sympathy. Cathy was in no mood to accept it.

“Oh, no,” she said in a sugar-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth voice. “Why should they be?”

Jon shot her a hard look. She could see him glowering at her, clearly misliking her answer.

“Best keep a lid on that hot little temper, sweet. I can always tie you up again.”

“You’re awfully good at making threats, aren’t you?” Cathy taunted, the hot little temper he had disparaged hitting flash point. “Let’s see how good you are at carrying them out!”

Her hand connected with his face with a satisfying smack. Jon’s head snapped back at the force of her blow, his hand flying automatically to his abused cheek.

“You damned little hell-cat!” he snarled, grabbing for her hands and imprisoning them in his. “You need a beating! And if you give me much more trouble, I’ll give it to you!”

“Oh, lawsy, more threats!” Cathy mocked recklessly. “Dear me, I’m all a-quiver!”

Jon ground his teeth, his hands moving up to seize her by the shoulders. He shook her until Cathy’s head was reeling. She fought, trying her best to pull her feet free and roll off the bunk. With her ankles still tied, it proved impossible.

“Let me go, you brute!” she snapped when she could again speak. Jon had stopped shaking her, staring down into her face with an expression that should have given her pause. She was too angry
to heed it. How dare he treat her like this? Her hand shot out again, slapping him hard across his other cheek.

“You bitch!” he roared, capturing her hands in a grip that made her wince. “I’ve had all I’m going to take from you! I ought to slap you silly!”

“Do it, you big, brave man! Go on, do it!” Cathy dared furiously. Jon’s gray eyes blazed down at her dangerously, but he didn’t take advantage of her invitation. For all her bravado, Cathy had not really thought he would. She knew him too well, or at least she thought she did. . . .

Instead he pushed her forcibly back down against the mattress, one knee nearly crushing her chest as it held her there. She squirmed and cursed as he tied first one hand and then the other to the bunk frame. She was as helpless as a baby by the time he stood up, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction.

“Untie me, Jonathan Hale! You untie me right now or I’ll make you sorry! I’ll scratch your eyes out when I get loose! I’ll . . . !”

“Temper, temper, little girl,” Jon chided with an edge to his voice, moving down to the end of the bunk. He reached for her feet, and Cathy was momentarily silent, thinking in some surprise that he meant to untie her, after all. But when her feet were free at last, he quickly tied them again; only this time her legs were tied separately—and apart.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

Jon smiled nastily.

“It just occurred to me that I deprived you of a bridegroom. But don’t let it worry you, sweet. I intend to replace him.”

Cathy gaped at him as the import of her position, helpless and spread-eagled across the narrow bunk, became suddenly all too clear.

“Don’t you dare!” she warned in a fierce, shaking whisper. “Jon, don’t you dare! I’ll hate you if you do! I mean it: I’ll hate you!”

“Hate away, Lady
Stanhope,” he drawled nastily. “You couldn’t possibly hate me any more than I hate you!”

While he was speaking he removed that wicked-looking knife from his belt. Cathy stared at it fearfully, shrinking into the hard mattress as its sharp edge approached her throat. But its target, as she realized with some relief, was the neckline of her nightdress. Catching up the fragile silk in one hand, Jon slid the knife under it, running the long blade the length of the material. The garment slit from neck to hem. Cathy felt the cool night air touch her skin as he pulled what was left of the gown from beneath her, wadding it up and throwing it on the floor. Watching the savagery of his movements, she shivered convulsively.

“Jon, don’t do this! Please!” she gasped as he bent purposefully over her. Her anger had fled, to be replaced by a kind of horror. She couldn’t bear it if he took her like this, brutally, with hatred between them where there had once been love. It would be rape as surely as what Harold had tried to do to her earlier would have been.

“Jon, no! Please!” she tried again, squirming as his strong, warm hands with their calloused palms slid with slow familiarity over her body.

“She begs so prettily,” Jon said to no one in particular. “Is that how you begged Harold, Lady Stanhope? Before you let him take you?”

“No!” Cathy cried, shaking her head from side to side. But Jon was no longer listening. He had straightened, staring down at her fixedly as he divested himself of shirt and breeches. Her naked body gleamed through the darkness, a pale X against the darker background of the coverlet. Her breasts were soft and full and very white, twin peaks crowned with impudent little nipples blushed a dusty pink. They quivered as he looked at them. Her waist was incredibly narrow, her belly that had housed his son smooth and flat. Her legs were long and curved, jerking now against the ropes binding her feet. The
soft, golden nest of hair between her thighs beckoned to him, promising him remembered delights. She was spread before him like a feast, and Jon suddenly knew that he was starving. He hadn’t had a woman for months, not since she had left him at Woodham to go to her father. (More fool he, for being faithful to vows that she couldn’t wait to discard!) During the long voyage across the Atlantic to England, he had dreamed of her endlessly, picturing her delectable body, imagining himself making passionate love to her. And in the even longer days and nights that had followed his imprisonment, his fantasies had grown more erotic. In his mind he had taken her every way in which a man could take a woman, but a mental seduction was a very unsatisfying exercise. But tonight—ahhh, tonight! She lay before him as helpless as a virgin served up for sacrifice, his for the taking. And take her he would. Her pleas and feeble little struggles moved him not at all.

“Jon, don’t do this!” Cathy begged again as, naked, he stretched his length on the bunk beside her.

“Pretend I’m Harold,” he whispered harshly back. Cathy cringed from the words.

He made a move as though he would kiss her; she turned her face away. His hand closed hurtfully on her chin, forcing her head back around. He held her chin tightly as his mouth closed over hers. His tongue probed between her lips, touched her teeth, which she kept tightly clenched. She would not, would not, submit to him!

“Don’t fight me, Cathy, or you’ll make me hurt you,” he warned in her ear. When she continued her stiff resistance he bit her soft lobe punishingly. Cathy gasped with pain, her eyes and mouth flying open at the same time. At that instant his thumb came up to press against her cheek in such a way that, if she tried to close her mouth, she would bite the inside of her jaw. Then, with her mouth opened to his satisfaction, his lips closed on hers again, kissing her hungrily. His tongue penetrated the sweet depths
of her mouth, exploring the dark cave, tickling her tongue with his. It stroked her lips and teeth and the roof of her mouth.

Cathy, hating him for what he was doing to her, for using force, took no pleasure from his touch. When he put his hands on her breasts, softly caressing her nipples, she tried to pull away. Tied as she was, she could move only a few inches. His hand followed her, continued with its play. To her shame she felt the soft peaks tremble, and grow hard.

His mouth took over from his hands, suckling gently at her breasts. Despite herself Cathy felt a burning ache begin in her belly. As if to assuage it, his hands slid over that silky surface, then moved down to rest lightly on the secret place between her legs. After a moment, his fingers began to move. Cathy heard a hoarse rasping sound, and realized with a sense of shock that it was her own breathing. Jon heard it, too, and raised his head to shoot her a triumphant look.

“Jon, if you do this, I’ll never forgive you,” Cathy whispered in a shaken voice as he raised himself above her.

Jon laughed.

six

W
hen he had exhausted himself at long last, Jon lay sprawled on top of her, his big body limp and heavy. His flesh was still imbedded in hers as his breathing slowly resumed its normal rhythm. Cathy, feeling both humiliated by his harsh possession and bitterly ashamed of her own body’s instinctive response to his practiced use of it, lay beneath him as still as death. His weight threatened to crush the air from her lungs, but she barely noticed that. Her whole consciousness was focused on the horror that had been done to her. Her eyes were closed tightly, and she was doing her best not to think at all. But her mind stubbornly refused to go blank. “I will never forgive him,” she thought numbly, feeling the warmth of his seed still trickling between her forcibly spread legs. “Never, never.”

His violence had taken the sweet flower of her love and twisted it into something ugly. That his perception of her actions might have provoked him, she realized but refused to condone as an excuse for what he had done. For years she had battled with his jealousy, with his deeply ingrained distrust of the entire female sex. Tonight, finally, she had lost. And she no longer cared enough
to pick herself up, brush herself off, and rejoin the battle any further. He was simply not worth it, as she saw now only too well. Jon equated love with sex, and saw all women as latently promiscuous. Even if this unfortunate series of events had not occurred, he would sooner or later have accused her of infidelity. Well, she was sick and tired of fighting his insecurities! Legally she was no longer bound to him, and by his own act he had severed every last one of her emotional bonds. At long last, he had set her free.

Cathy felt icy cold as she remembered how he had taken her. He had not been physically abusive—with her tied, there had been no need. But when he had roused in her response that she couldn’t control, he had sneered, calling her all manner of filthy names even as he had penetrated the last of her barriers. She had not even been able to close her thighs against him. . . .

To her shocked amazement, she felt a giggle begin to bubble in her throat. A near rape and a completed one all in the same night—and by two different men! That must be some sort of a record! Maybe she should feel flattered. After all, not every female could boast of having inspired such savagery. There must be something about her that drove men beyond the limits of normal decency, transforming them into ravening animals. She pictured Jon as a lean gray wolf and Harold as a fat pink pig, and the giggle burst trillingly forth.

Jon couldn’t believe his ears. She was laughing! The little bitch was actually laughing! He raised himself on his elbows to peer down into her face with disbelief. After what had just taken place between them, the light-hearted sound stunned him. She must be even more depraved than he had thought!

Her eyes were tightly closed, her lashes laying in thick black crescents against the startling whiteness of her skin. Her pink mouth, swollen from his kisses, was open, and the laughter was spilling in long, irregular spurts. As he watched her, taken aback, two glistening silver tears worked their way from beneath her pale,
closed lids to trickle pathetically down the sides of her face. Against his will, Jon’s conscience smote him. Maybe he should not have taken her as he had, however much she had asked for it and deserved it. But he had been angry, and slightly tight, and the image of Harold stroking and kissing the body that was driving him, Jon, into such frenzies had sent him slightly off his head. As he remembered the names he had called her, even while her body was driving him wild with desire, he felt the first twinges of shame.