Teresa Medeiros (32 page)

Lucy’s cheeks ignited as Gerard’s gaze roamed her masculine attire with insulting thoroughness, but she refused to drop her defiant glare. “Tell me, Captain, while you were at Ionia, was he the one cavorting about the Channel, stripping naval officers down to their drawers and playing faro with Royal Treasury gold?”

Gerard exchanged a cryptic glance with his quartermaster, but declined to answer.

Apollo cleared his throat with a bass rumble. “I’d best see to the watch, sir.”

Sir
, Lucy thought. A term of respect, deference even, but not of subservience. Had she not been foolishly
blinded by the hue of Apollo’s skin, she would have realized immediately that these men shared equal footing.

“Stay.” Gerard’s barked command surprised her. If it surprised Apollo, he didn’t show it, but simply stepped back to linger on the fringes of the lantern light.

Lucy blinked innocently and spread her arms as if inviting Gerard to search her. “I’m unarmed, Captain. You’ve no need of a bodyguard.”

But
you
might, Gerard thought, surveying Lucy through narrowed eyes. There was something different about her. Something that ran deeper than the linen shirt knotted carelessly at her waist or the insolent fall of her hair, unfettered by ribbons or combs. Something indefinable, yet undeniably appealing. He made a mental note to obtain some proper clothes for her. She was too damned alluring in his.

He gestured tersely to the table. “Eat. And if you’ve any childish ideas of starving yourself to gain my sympathy …”

He was forced to swallow the rest of his threat as Lucy straddled the chair and began shoveling food into her mouth. Her unabashed enjoyment of the simple fare was jarring. Gerard was thankful Tarn had purchased fresh stores in London. He doubted she would have shown such enthusiasm over the wormy oatmeal and weevil-infested biscuits they were frequently reduced to eating after long weeks at sea.

She polished off a plateful of beans and half a loaf of brown bread, then washed it all down with a healthy swallow of milk. Gerard was gratified. He had confiscated the precious beverage from Pudge’s private stores. It was almost worth enduring Pudge’s whining to see Lucy’s aristocratic upper lip painted with a milk
mustache. He had the absurd desire to bend down and lap it away.

She rescued him from that temptation only to present an even more beguiling one as her pink tongue swept away the creamy froth with the sensual languor of a cat preening its whiskers.

Biting back a groan, he sank heavily into the chair opposite her and indicated the chaos surrounding them. “I’m glad to see you kept yourself amused while I was away.”

Lucy shrugged, unwilling to admit she’d been searching for some clue to his capricious character. She refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing she was still that intrigued by him. And not even under threat of torture would she reveal that she was coming to believe his accusations against her father.

“I’m easily bored,” she said airily.

“Ah, yes, and a productive life is a happy life, isn’t it, Miss Snow?”

His mockery goaded her. “Pirates must have their own schedule of wicked deeds to complete in the course of an average day. Plundering ships. Terrorizing innocent people.”

Gerard’s capable hands toyed with the Admiral’s letter opener, almost as if he’d forgotten he still held it. “Don’t forget drinking the blood of newborns and weaving necklaces of human ears.” He shot her a look from beneath his luxuriant lashes, testing the blade against the pad of his thumb. “Have I ever told you what pretty little ears you have?”

Fresh humiliation stung her as she recalled reciting those ludicrous Captain Doom myths. How he must have laughed at her! Her embarrassment coalesced into surging anger.

She tipped her head back, boldly exposing the delicate appendages in question. “Don’t cheat your reputation,
Captain. You’ve left off turning your victims to stone with a glance and ravishing ten virgins in a single night.”

“Before midnight,” he shot back. “Although I suppose ravishing one virgin ten times would suffice. What time is it, Apollo?”

Lucy shrank back in her chair, conceding the effectiveness of his parry. She had foolishly forgotten the risk in baiting him.

“Time for me to see to the watch, sir,” Apollo replied smoothly.

“Very well, then. Go,” Gerard snapped.

As Apollo took his leave, casting his captain an unreadable look, Lucy shifted her weight, trying not to squirm. She might not have been so hasty to taunt Gerard had she realized she was to be abandoned so soon to the whims of his temper.

She was not comforted when he pocketed the letter opener. She knew better than anyone that he had other, more subtle, weapons at his disposal. The silent specter of the untouched bed loomed behind him.

He eyed her, massaging the hint of golden stubble along his jaw. Lucy wished he was still wearing the spectacles, if only to protect her from his inscrutable eyes. Not even her father’s bullying had so tempted her to blather all of her secrets. Secrets that could only disgrace and humiliate her further.

When he finally spoke, his voice was as brisk and formal as the Admiral’s. “I didn’t come here to spar with you. I came to lay down the law. I thought a civilized discussion would be simpler and far less time-consuming than carving the pirate articles on your”—he fought a brief battle with himself and lost; his gaze flicked down to the faded linen cupping her breasts—“chest.”

“Whose law are you laying down? Not the Crown’s certainly.”

He rose to circle the table and Lucy was reminded of their first meeting. Not being blindfolded gave her no advantage. Now she
knew
how dangerous he was. She wondered how he had managed to suppress his natural arrogance for all those weeks. The air of command was stamped on him as bluntly as his features.

He clasped his hands at the small of his back. “The only law that matters as long as you’re aboard this vessel. Mine.” She started as he leaned over her shoulder in that disconcerting manner of his. The smoky cadence of his voice caressed her ear. “I strongly suggest obedience. As captain of this ship, I’m afraid the task of”—he savored the word with alarming relish—
“discipline
naturally falls to me.”

“Naturally.” She swallowed audibly.

He straightened. “Laws are made to protect those who obey them. I ask only one thing of you. You’re not to leave this cabin for any reason. Due to its very nature, the
Retribution
is crewed by some of the most vicious cutthroats in all of England. I’ve managed to keep your presence on board a secret thus far from all but Apollo, but should you escape this cabin and fall into the hands of my crew …” His pause was fraught with both warning and regret. “I won’t be responsible for what happens.”

“Of course not,” Lucy whispered, fighting back a shiver of pure misery.

He’d abdicated all responsibility for her the moment he’d nabbed her in the library. She could only guess what was coming next—a generous offer of his
protection
coupled with a thinly veiled threat of tossing her to his crew if she refused.

The last tiny ray of faith in her heart flickered in anticipation of dying. Her brief surge of bravado
melted away, leaving her defenseless and dangerously near to tears.

She would not beg him, she vowed. No matter what he did to her. No matter what he forced her to do. He was nothing more than a ruthless stranger who had masqueraded as a man she could love.

“Lucy?”

The gentle query startled her. It was like hearing the ghost of a dead loved one speak. It was even more startling to have the fog clear from her eyes to discover Gerard kneeling in front of her, his expression softened with concern.

“Are you feeling ill again? You may still be suffering from the effects of the
somnorifera
.”

He reached to touch her brow, but she shied away. “I’m fine, thank you. Unlike you, I suffer from neither perplexing bouts of blindness nor seasickness.”

He straightened, accepting her rebuff with an ounce less grace than before. How could she tell him she was suffering from an affliction far more devastating—a broken heart?

“What do you intend to do with me, Captain? Sell me to white slavers or hold me for ransom? Are you prepared to barter me to the highest bidder?”

“The Admiral can choke on his ill-gotten wealth for all I care. All I want is that letter of marque and a full confession of his complicity in the scheme to defraud me.”

The cynicism in Lucy’s laugh failed to smooth its edge of despair. “You’ll get neither. His reputation would be destroyed. He’d be utterly ruined.”

“Then he has a choice to make, doesn’t he?” His unspoken threat chilled her. “Get some rest,” he commanded gruffly. “There’ll be no need for you to rise at daybreak. You’ll find my demands on your time far less stringent than your father’s.”

Lucy watched, stunned, as he turned to go, shoving her petticoat out of his path. She opened her mouth to blurt out his name, then snapped it shut. What was she going to do? Call him back to impugn her honor?

The door slammed.

The key turned.

The bolt slammed into place.

“Why, that miserable wretch!” She sprang out of the chair, giving the leather-bound book sprawled on the cabin floor a malicious kick.

Lucy knew she was being absurd. She’d been terrified he would ravish her, yet now her pride was wounded because he hadn’t even tried.

She paced to the window to watch the shadows of dusk creep across the sky. Was Gerard just biding his time as he’d proven so skilled at doing or was he playing the gentleman with her once again? She had literally thrown herself into his lap at Ionia and he had resisted her.

She closed her eyes, bombarded with unwanted memories: Gerard’s fingers gently cupping her breasts, stroking the moist, throbbing heart of her womanhood, capturing her helpless cry of ecstasy. The forbidden visions evoked a poignant mixture of longing and shame.

Did he find her repugnant because she was the daughter of a man he despised, or did he find her personally distasteful? As loath as she was to admit it, she found the latter prospect by far the more dismal one.

Her father had been right about one thing. Emotions played havoc with logic. Weary of battling her conflicting feelings, Lucy slumped against the bulkhead and gazed at the enormous bed. It didn’t seem as threatening now as it did desolate. Sighing, she extinguished the lantern. Taking great care not to muss the
elegant counterpane, she crawled into the captain’s bed and surrendered to exhaustion.

A slender spar of moonlight fell across Lucy’s face. Gerard stood over her, watching her sleep. It had been enough of a challenge keeping his distance at Ionia, but having her aboard the
Retribution
—beneath his command, in his bed—was more temptation than any man could be expected to resist.

She’d curled herself into a wary ball in the precise center of the bed, somehow managing to leave the satin counterpane unruffled. The cabin was cool, the coal embers in the stove waning, yet she’d spurned both blankets and pillows as if to accept their comfort would expose her to the enemy. To him.

Her defensive posture in slumber and the thin veneer of bravado the masculine garments lent her only made her seem more vulnerable. More defenseless and in need of protection. Gerard reached for a strand of the ashen hair fanned across the counterpane, then drew his hand back, reminding himself harshly that it was no longer his job to protect her.

The moonlight illuminated her pallor and the smudges of exhaustion beneath her eyes. He’d had no choice but to confine her to quarters. His first responsibility was to his crew. And to his family. But he dreaded the thought of her languishing belowdeck, fading like one of her fragile gloxinia blooms deprived of sunlight and fresh air. He knew better than anyone how damning to the soul it was to be robbed of freedom. It made him pause to count the steep cost of his vendetta.

With a will of its own, his hand once again sought her hair. He sifted the moon-gilded silk through his fingers, luxuriating in its texture. She had recoiled from his every attempt to touch her, loathing plain in
her eyes. What had he expected? That upon learning the truth, she would denounce her father and throw herself into his arms, vowing her undying loyalty? He certainly hadn’t earned it. He had betrayed her no less than the Admiral had.

His hand fisted in her hair. She already believed the worst of him. What was to stop him from proving her right? From leaning forward to nibble her slightly parted lips into unwitting surrender. From capturing her wrists and imprisoning her slight body beneath the weight of his own. But he doubted even his powers of seduction, once honed to perfection on some of the most beautiful women in London, were enough to overwhelm her fierce sense of betrayal. As soon as she shook off the fog of sleep and realized what was happening to her, she would fight him.

Then they would both learn just how much of the dark still lingered in his soul.

He let her hair slip through his fingers, some savage, selfish part of him despising his own damnable reluctance to hurt her any more than he already had. What was it about this slight girl that never failed to stir his dormant conscience?