Chapter 10
“Wherein a pirate plots a course.”
Lars strode the deck bellowing orders and practically daring any of his men to step out of line as they avoided his eye as best they could. It was perfectly obvious to all aboard that he was in a fine mood to beat the living daylights out of anyone who so much as looked at him wrong.
Frustration simmered in his veins and every sense was on alert and demanding that he return to his cabin this instant and finish what he’d started.
He paced the gun deck wondering why on earth he didn’t do just that.
Why had he cut and run just when things were getting interesting?
Because the girl was a damn sight more than just interesting that’s why.
Lars stared out across the open sea, watching as the sun climbed, sparkling on the diamond-bright water as it rose into a clear blue sky. Hauling in a lungful of clean, cold air he tried to dispel the lingering desire that fogged his mind and would not allow him to think with any clarity.
He just didn’t know what to make of her. In the shop he’d been certain he was a dead man when he’d seen her gaping at him, all wide brown eyes and innocence. He’d been certain she would scream, and the militia would fall on him like crows on carrion. But instead she’d saved him.
He’d felt more of a scoundrel than he ever had in his life when he’d kissed her, but she’d been impossible to resist. The sweetest prize he could ever imagine.
He’d known he would never see her again; a woman like that was beyond anything he could hope for now, but he’d known too that she would haunt his dreams for the rest of his days.
A pirate was hardly the kind of man a respectable woman would aspire to, and the idea of never knowing how those lips would feel against his own had made him feel strangely adrift.
So, he had risked her screaming the place down and stolen a kiss.
And the astonishment and elation that had coursed through him when she had kissed him back seemed to linger in his blood like a disease, waiting to disarm him and weaken his resolve whenever she chose.
He’d been so tempted to linger that he’d been perilously close to getting caught, as it was he’d only just evaded the redcoats.
He’d nearly put his neck in a noose for nothing more than a kiss.
But the memory of that kiss had haunted his every thought, through each moment of that day until she’d appeared again out of the blue.
He hadn’t known what to think when he’d seen her. When he believed she had come to keep him safe he’d been torn between unreasonable joy and fury that she’d endangered herself for a man like him. But he’d been unaccountably angry when she’d tried to blackmail him.
That his sweet little innocent was neither sweet nor innocent had somehow hurt him, as though she’d betrayed him somehow. He snorted at the idea and leaned on the rail, looking down and watching the water slide over the hull as his ship cut a clean line through the waves.
It was obviously ridiculous to think she’d misled him, had made him believe she was as innocent as she’d looked.
But he’d wanted to hold the memory of her close, something to warm him when the constant need to keep moving wore him down.
For in recent years the hunter had become the hunted and he knew he had little time left before they caught up with him.
No one could run forever. No one could always have fortune on their side.
Sooner or later the wind would turn, and he’d be out manoeuvred.
And yet now he didn’t know what to think.
The fury which she’d turned on him when he’d suggested the idea of paying him for his help with her body, the dignity with which she’d stood up to him and cut him down was astonishing.
She was like no woman he had ever met before.
She intrigued him and instinctively he knew that was dangerous.
He had no place in his life for romantic entanglements.
Women were not welcome on board ships for good reason.
They caused nothing but trouble, distracted the men and kept their minds from the job.
The best he could do was just as she had suggested and bid her goodbye the moment they made port. Lawrence decided to risk Valencia. He’d had friends there, people he hoped he could still trust. He’d get the lay of the land before he decided what was next.
Perhaps he could escape the noose by becoming a privateer.
Poacher turned gamekeeper, he thought with a grimace, not that he had any great love for others of his kind, save those men aboard his ship.
The men of his crew he trusted with his life.
They had been together for years and he knew them like his own brothers.
But the others who called themselves pirates were not like those who had gone before them.
The way of the coast, the brethren and their code, their old ways were long dead and gone and he mourned the loss of the ideal. There was little or no honour among thieves, not any more.
So that was it then, a plan of sorts. He would put her ashore and she would make her way home one way or another.
He wondered how she’d fare. Perhaps, with luck, she would find an honourable gentleman who would see her safely home.
Or perhaps she’d fall foul of some lecherous bastard who would take advantage of her and kill the spirit that burned so fiercely in those tawny brown eyes.
The idea made something in his chest constrict.
Damn the woman, she would bring him nothing but trouble. He should just go back to the cabin and take what he wanted. She obviously wanted him too, despite her protestations about him being the last man on earth she would ever want.
That had stung, he admitted to himself. He wasn’t a fool.
He would hardly believe she would want a pirate for a husband, and he was certainly not in the market for a wife and never would be.
But he knew women desired him, and her vehemence in denying she would ever even consider him, even as a lover, had cut into his pride more than he’d expected.
And then he’d kissed her.
He couldn’t say why. She’d raged at him, called him a fool, had made him furious during her tirade, and yet he’d been quite unable to stop himself.
And once again, despite everything she’d said, she had responded, willingly, eagerly, and it had taken everything he had to walk away and close the door on her.
She’d been right about one thing, the women who usually warmed his bed were only too easy, more than willing to be seduced by a handsome pirate while their erstwhile husbands raised the money to save them.
They usually left with a smile on their faces and both parties well satisfied with the bargain.
But she was foolish to think he couldn’t seduce her just as easily, as his kiss had proved all too eloquently, and what a delightful pastime, to watch her resolution crumble as she submitted inevitably to his advances.
Tentatively he traced the lines she had scratched down his neck.
Perhaps if he took her to bed, he’d feel better?
Perhaps then she would cease to be so ..
. alluring. It was that strange mix of sweet innocence and fierce spirit that was so beguiling after all: the fresh-faced beauty who would dare to walk alone into a smuggler’s bar and seek out a pirate.
The girl with the wide brown eyes who would stand up to the Rogue himself and give him the sharp side of her tongue.
Yes, perhaps when he’d had her, when she’d been laid open for him, with those little claws in his back and his name on her lips when she came apart, perhaps then he’d break the spell she’d begun to cast.
His attention was taken from the tantalising image by a shout from Mousy. The large man had resumed his duties as quartermaster and was striding towards him.
“We got company, Cap’n.”
Lars turned on his heel and scanned the horizon. A tiny speck was just visible, and he snatched the spyglass from Mousy’s hand.
“A sloop?” he demanded as he adjusted the glass.
“Aye,” Mousy said, his expression grim. “She’ll catch us.”
“You’re sure she’s in pursuit?”
Mousy snorted. “There’s a chance we’re followin’ the same course, aye.”
Lars shook his head, laughing. “No, I don’t believe it either. All right, do what you can to keep her at bay for now and we’ll decide when to engage her.”
“Aye, Cap’n.”
Lars watched as the big man strode away from him.
He wasn’t surprised they were being followed.
He’d expected as much. The price on his head was significant enough now for him to be a target worth pursuing.
But the amount of militia men that had come for him meant they’d known not only that he was coming ashore but where to look.
They’d been waiting for him.
An icy finger of doubt trailed down his back. They’d known because someone had told them. The only question was who? The only man there ahead of him, the one who had written the letter, was one of his most trusted men, sent on ahead to get the information he required before he came ashore.
He knew instinctively that he was not the source of this mischief. Which meant the information had to have been sent on before they landed. The last time they made port, perhaps, when he had made his intentions known to the crew.
Which meant someone on his ship intended to profit from betraying him, and he no longer knew who he could trust.