The Ravishing One (17 page)

That way led to disaster. Better to concentrate on making her way to the upper deck with what was left of the rest of her pride intact. She opened the doors at
the top of the stairs and peered out before cautiously stepping onto the decking.

After three days of roiling seas the morning had dawned calmly. Above, the sky was thick and gray. The
Alba Star’s
sails filled with a weak wind that moved her sluggishly across the ocean’s flat, mercury-colored back.

Fia tilted her face to meet the light spray flung back from the ship’s cutting prow. It salted her lips and stung her eyes, but after three days huddled in her sour-smelling cabin she drank the clean air as a thirsty man drinks water. The sound of voices caused her to open her eyes. At once she spotted Thomas. One booted foot planted on the rail, his elbow on his thigh, he stood in earnest conversation with one of the crew. His eyes were narrowed, his dark brows dipped low over his bold nose.

The wind up top must have been stiffer than where Fia stood, for though Thomas had shed his coat, his shirt was plastered against his chest. It molded to the hard, flat contours of muscle and bone, billowing like the wind-filled sails above. As she watched, he nodded and straightened, stretching his great, long arms over his head and yawning hugely. He spoke and whatever he said caused the sailor to laugh. Thomas answered with a masculine, confident smile, reminding Fia powerfully that on this ship Thomas was king and the sea was his domain.

The sailor left and Thomas rubbed the back of his neck, his gaze eastward. The humor disappeared and his features donned a pensive expression. He looked tired and troubled.

Fia frowned. She did not want to see him vulnerable. She did not want to think of him as troubled or haunted. Not like herself in any way.

She glanced up again. He’d turned, facing squarely ahead, his fists planted on his hips, his legs straddling the decking in an open stance. The wind whipped his shirt across his lean flanks and teased open the laces at his throat, revealing the strong prow of his collarbone beneath tan flesh.

She shivered, pulling the light shawl she’d packed more tightly across her shoulders. She had always been attracted to Thomas Donne’s strength, his strength of character as much as his physical one. When she’d met him at Wanton’s Blush, she’d decided that Thomas Donne was the sort of man who would never allow himself to manipulated or blackmailed—not like the others at the castle.

It set him apart in her mind. No. It set him apart in her
heart
. His actions to her, courtly to a frustrating degree, had only cemented his place there.

How childish she’d been. Hindsight easily informed her that what she’d mistaken as his “courtly reticence” had been irony and that his chivalry had been nothing more than casual pity. Well, at least he was no longer casual about her.

She tipped her chin up to an angle that matched Thomas’s. Her features smoothed to expressionless beauty, the exquisite camouflage that was so much a part of her.

She’d survived being Carr’s child by facing bitter truths. She would not shy from them now. And the
truth was this: In Thomas Donne’s judgment she’d fulfilled the destiny he’d once foretold. She’d become nothing more or less than Carr’s whore. That is why, or so he told himself, he’d taken her from London—to save James Barton from her.

Well, she wouldn’t allow him the solace of being his comfortable victim. She’d allowed herself to be abducted in part because Thomas Donne needed a lesson.

She blinked fiercely, ridding her eyes of unwanted tears. She wanted Thomas to know a little of what it felt like to be stripped of one’s illusions.

He’d betrayed the ideal she’d carried all these years. She’d held Thomas Donne up as an example of a man who was above animal pleasures and animal lusts, who desired only where the heart was engaged, who wanted only what he valued.

It didn’t make a damn bit of difference to her that it wasn’t fair to him, that he’d never asked to occupy the lofty position she’d assigned him. And it didn’t matter to her that he looked tired and worn. This had nothing to do with fairness! She’d had little trade with that worthy notion and did not intend to start now. This had to do with retribution.

The Thomas she’d once created in her girlish imagination did not exist. Despite his low opinion of her, he
wanted
her. In spite of his contempt. In spite of his mistrust. In spite of all of what he presumed to know about her.

She felt it in the way his gaze fastened on her, in the hesitant compulsion that led him to touch her
and, more important, made him refrain from touching her. She discerned it in the angle of his body when he drew near, in the scent of him, in the arousal he took such pains to disguise, in the space between them that nearly shimmered with awareness. Longing. And scorn.

She pulled the shawl tighter.

“Lady Fia!”

She came out of her bitter reverie with a start, distressed to find tears on her face. Quickly she dashed the backs of her hands across her cheeks and turned, startled to find herself trembling.

“Yes, Captain Donne?” Her voice rose above the snap of the sails, her vow to bring Thomas to his knees revived.

Thomas snatched his coat from the rail and descended the short flight of stairs to the deck. When he reached her side, he laid his jacket over her shoulders. Suddenly, she was drowning in the dense boiled wool, surrounded by him, her senses inundated with his scent.

“You are well? No more sickness?” he asked.

“Much improved.” Blast the man for reminding her of the last few days. It put her at a distinct disadvantage—particularly for a woman bent on seduction. It is hard to be seductive when one’s mind is filled with images of oneself bent over a slop bucket.

“You do not look well,” he muttered.

She laughed. “La! Captain! I am at a loss as to how I shall respond to such gallantry. Tell me, just how bad do I look?”

Ah! That ought to fluster the great dark-skinned brute. His brows lowered forbiddingly. “Your illness has pared the flesh from you and bruised the skin beneath your eyes, but for all that you are as ravishing as ever and well you know it,” he said grudgingly. “I can scarcely credit it, but were you on your deathbed from some wasting illness, I swear you would still be beautiful.”

It was she who was flustered; she sought some tantalizing reply but could only find a shrewish one. “Do you intend to find more rough seas in order to make me sick again?”

He looked at her in surprise. “Why would I do that?”

“To satisfy your curiosity in regard to exactly at what point I might lose my looks.”

His gaze grew sour. “I would not play so cruel a game.”

“Wouldn’t you? But here you’ve stolen me from what home I have, taken me from my friends and family, and are carrying me off to a location that you will not reveal.” She smiled sweetly. “Can you blame me for mistaking you for a cruel man?”

“I have my reasons,” he said.

“And what might those be?” She swept her arm out, gesturing over the sea. “We are, I should think, sufficiently well away from London for you to entrust me with the motive for your extraordinary action—extraordinary only inasmuch as you say it has nothing of a liaison to it.”

“It hasn’t.”

“Well then?” She arched one brow in regal inquiry.

“I have brought you here not to seduce you, but to keep you from compromising my friend James Barton.”

She tossed back her head and laughed.

“Oh!” She sniffed, dabbing at imaginary tears of delight. “Oh! How splendid. Let me see if I have this correct. Essentially, you’ve absconded with me so that your friend doesn’t, is that right?”

His eyelids narrowed. “Essentially.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you?” she asked, still smiling merrily.

“It’s the truth. You can do with it what you like. I don’t care.”

“But I care,” she murmured, stepping nearer until his broad chest shielded her from the wind, while the warmth still contained in his coat cradled her. “Because I think you’re a liar, Captain.”

His head jerked back. If her gender had been different he would have struck her for saying that.

She went on, “I know you’ve told yourself that you’re saving James from a terrible mistake. But in truth, a truth I’ll have you admit ere I’m done, you took me because you want me. Not as a hostage. Not as a prisoner. But as your lover.”

“You’re wrong.” He made the words a vow.

She laughed again. “You leave me no choice but to demonstrate.”

His face reflected his distaste. “I’d have thought you too old for these childish games, Fia.”

She flushed at the rebuke, put off by his attitude of frank disappointment. Men were rarely disappointed in her—sometimes they were disappointed in her
decisions, especially those that did not acquiesce to their plans, but not her. She retreated behind her poise, pressing her hand over his left breast.

“I’ve warned you,” she whispered. “I intend to break your heart.”

“You’d have to own it first.”

He did not look at her.

“I’ll own your soul as well,” she whispered.

At that he grinned suddenly, discomposing her once more. “Such dramatics, Fia,” he said, finally looking down at her. “The London theater doesn’t know what it’s missing.”

She blinked, struggled for some wordplay to return her the advantage. “I prefer,” she purred, “an audience of one.”

He snorted, encircled her wrist, and removed her hand from his person. “If you plan to seduce me, you’ll have to offer less hackneyed fare than that, m’dear,” he said. “I fear you’ve become accustomed to relying too much on your beauty to do your wooing. I am but a nearsighted fellow and rely on what I hear as much as what I see.

“If I might be so bold, may I suggest you author a few new lines to pique my interest—that is if you really feel inclined to make a go at securing my unworthy affections—lest I grow bored before the courtship e’er begins?”

“Oh!” Only years of practicing self-restraint spared her the ignominy of stomping her foot.

“Now, Fia,” he said, though the smile did not fit quite as easily as it had before. “Don’t let your good
mood grow foul over such a trifle. We’re near to landing. Look.”

Before she could react, he’d placed his hands on her shoulders and spun her about. He pulled her against him so that her back pressed against his chest, his big palms cradling her shoulders and holding her still. His heart beat steadily between her shoulder blades. His hands were warm and strong, his body a ballast behind her.

A sudden pitch of the sea knocked her off balance, driving her buttocks against the lee of his hips. His breath hissed on a sharp draw. His right arm swooped down across her breasts, bracing her against him. Sinew rippled beneath the sun-dark skin, pressed deep against the soft, pale flesh swelling above her décolletage.

For a long moment he held her thus. And though she knew such intimacy would advance her objective, she could not take advantage of their position. She could not think of some witty, provocative comment; she could not
think
at all. Every inch of her flesh urged her to burrow closer. And then the ship regained its even keel and Thomas shifted her away from him, removing his arm and freeing her. He stepped back and pointed.

“There.” His voice sounded labored, breathless. Or was it only the blood rushing in her ears that made it seem so? She had to say something.

“What is it?” she asked stupidly.

“Land. Scotland.”

Her gaze sharpened and she scoured the horizon. “Where?”

“There. That strip of darkness.”

She swung around, staring up at him. His gaze did not waver from the horizon. “Where have you brought me?”

“Home,” he said softly.

Chapter 14

T
hrough the small window in her cabin Fia saw a light at the top of the headland pierce the fog. A short while later one of the sailors came to her cabin and made impatient gestures for her to follow him.

She wasn’t sure why she should consider refusing but when Thomas had told her that the little slab on the horizon was Scotland, unnamed emotions had coursed through her like a riptide. Wherever she’d expected Thomas to take her, it hadn’t been Scotland.

She watched as the sailor unceremoniously tumbled her belongings into the open mouth of her portmanteau. With a grunt he lifted the trunk, grabbed the portmanteau, and jerked his head in the direction of the door.

Forcing down her rising unease, she swept out of
the room and up to the open deck. Thomas was nowhere in sight. Reluctantly her eyes moved toward the shore. They were close now. Through the dense fog, she could just make out the land’s sheer walls and at its base a jumble of rocks that rose like jagged teeth from an animal’s foaming maw.

It could only be McClairen’s Isle. She waited for the expected anguish so that she could deal with it. None came. Instead she found herself studying the great island fortess with undeniable anticipation.

Home
, Thomas had said. She’d not forgotten that Thomas owned a house fifteen miles inland from McClairen’s Isle, and assumed when he’d said “home” that is what he’d meant. But he’d brought her to her home as well, and she recognized that with a warm sense of familiarity.

She knew each copse of trees on that island, each patch of bracken, where the harebells hid in the rocks come spring, and where on the side of the island it would turn crimson come fall. She knew the castle, too: where the priest’s hole had been carved in the garden wall, which rooms’ ceilings sparkled with light reflected from the ocean below, and how hard the wind needed to blow before the battlements sang as though manned by a hundred fife players.

Her eager gaze clouded. There were no battlements now, nor rooms with sparkling ceilings. Wanton’s Blush had burned down six years ago. She’d left just before the blaze had started.

Carr had been there, though. He’d struggled from
the inferno with his precious papers intact; the price paid in broken bones and lacerations small compared to what the loss of his blackmail material would have meant.