Seduced by the Scoundrel

‘You slept in this bed? Don’t deny it!’

‘I have no intention of denying it. That is my bed. Ah, I see. You think I would ravish an unconscious woman.’ It was not a soft face, even when he was not frowning; now he looked as hard as granite and about as abrasive.

‘What am I expected to think?’ she demanded. Did he expect her to apologise?

‘Are you a nun that you would prefer that I left you, helpless and unconscious, to live or die untouched by contaminating male hands?’

‘No.’

‘Do I look like a man who needs to use an unconscious woman?’

That had touched his pride, she realised. Most men were arrogant about their sexual prowess and she had just insulted his. She was at his mercy, it was best to be a little conciliatory.

‘No. I was alarmed. And confused. I. Thank you for looking after me.’ Embarrassed, she fiddled with her hair and her fingers snagged in tangles. ‘Ow!’

‘I washed it, after a fashion, but I couldn’t get the knots out.’ He rummaged on a shelf and tossed a comb on to the bed by her hand. ‘You can try, just don’t cry if you can’t get the tangles out.’

‘I don’t cry.’ She was on the edge of it though; the tears had almost come. But she was not in the habit of crying: what need had she had for tears before? And she was not going to weep in front of him. It was the one small humiliation she could prevent.

‘No, you don’t cry, do you?’ Was that approval? He put his hand on the latch. ‘I’ll lock this, so don’t waste your effort trying to get out.’

‘What is your name?’ His anonymity was a weapon he held against her, another brick in the wall of ignorance and powerlessness that was trapping her here, in his control.

For the first time she saw him hesitate. ‘Luke.’

‘The men called you Captain.’

‘I was.’ He smiled. It was not until she felt the stone wall press against her shoulders that Averil realised she had recoiled from the look in his eyes. Don’t ask any more, her instincts screamed at her. ‘And you?’

‘Averil Heydon.’ As soon as she said her surname she wished it back. Her father was a wealthy man, he would pay any ransom for her, and now they could find out who her family was. ‘Why are you keeping me a prisoner?’

But Luke said nothing more and the key turned in the lock the moment the door was shut.

At about two in the afternoon Luc opened the door with a degree of caution. His half-drowned mermaid had more guts than he’d expected from a woman who had been through what she had, let alone the well-bred lady she obviously was from her accent. She must be desperate now. The table knife was in his pocket, but he’d left his razor on the high shelf, which was careless.

She was embarrassed as well as frightened, but she would feel better after a proper meal. He needed her rational and she was, most certainly, sharing his bed tonight. ‘Dinner time,’ he announced and brought in the platters and the pot of stew.

Averil turned from the stool by the window where she had sat for the long hours since he had left her, thinking about this man, Luke, whose bed she had been sharing. The one who sounded like a gentleman and who was as bad as the rest of that crew on the beach. What was he? Pirate, smuggler, freebooter? The men were scum—their leader would be no better, only more powerful. She had dreamed about him, and in her dream he had held her and protected her. Fantasy was cruelly deceptive.

‘Here,’ he said as he dumped things on the table. ‘Dinner. Potts is a surprisingly good cook.’

The smell reached her then and her empty stomach knotted. It was stew of some kind and the aroma was savoury and delicious. Luke had put the platter on the table so she would have to go over there to reach it, dressed only in his shirt and the trailing sheet. He was tormenting her, or perhaps training her as one did an animal. Perhaps both.

‘I want to eat it here, not with you.’

‘And I want you to use your limbs or you’ll be as stiff as a board.’ He leaned one shoulder against the wall by the hearth. ‘Are you warm enough? I can light a fire.’

‘How considerate, but I will not put you to the trouble.’ The worn skim of sacking over the window let in enough light to see him clearly and she stared, with no attempt at concealment. If he had any conscience at all he would find her scrutiny uncomfortable, but he merely lifted one brow in acknowledgement and stared back.

He was tall, with hair so dark a brown as to seem almost black. He was tanned, and by the shade she guessed he was naturally more olive-skinned than fair. She had seen so many Europeans arrive in India and burn in the sun that she knew exactly how every shade of complexion would turn. His eyes were dark grey, and his brows were dark, too, tilted a little in a way that gave his face a sardonic look.

His nose was large, narrow-bridged and arrogant; it would have been too big if it had not been balanced by a determined jaw. No, it was too big, despite that. He was not handsome, she told herself. If she had liked him, she would have thought his face strong, even interesting perhaps. He looked intelligent. As it was, he was just a dark, brooding man she could not ignore. Her eyes slid lower. He was lean, narrow-hipped.

‘Well?’ he enquired. ‘Am I more interesting than your dinner, which is getting cold?’

‘Not at all. You are, however, in the way of me eating it.’ She was not used to snubbing people or being cold or capricious. Miss Heydon, they said, was open and warm and charming. Sweet. She no longer felt sweet—perhaps she never would again. She tipped up her chin and regarded him down her nose.

‘My dear girl, if you are shy of showing your legs, allow me to remind you that I have seen your entire delightful body.’ He sounded as though he was recalling every detail as he spoke, but was not much impressed by what he had recalled.

‘Then you do not have to view any of it again,’ Averil snapped. Where the courage to stand up to him and answer back was coming from, she had no idea. She was only too well aware that she was regarded as a biddable, modest Nice Young Lady who did not say boo to geese, let alone bandy words with some pirate or whatever Luke was. But her back was literally against the wall and there was no one to rescue her because no one knew she was alive. It was up to her and that was curiously strengthening, despite the fear.

He shrugged and pulled out the chair. ‘I want to see you eat. Get over here—or do you want me to carry you?’

She had the unpleasant suspicion that if she refused he really would simply pick her up and dump her on the seat. Averil fumbled for the sheet and stood up with it as a trailing skirt around her. She gave it an instinctive twitch and the memory that action brought back surprised a gasp of laughter out of her, despite the aches and pains that walking produced and the situation she found herself in.

‘What is amusing?’ Luke enquired as she sat down opposite him. ‘I trust you are not about to have hysterics.’

It might be worth it to see how he reacted, but he would probably simply slap her or throw cold water in her face—the man had no sensibility. ‘I have been practising managing the train on a court presentation gown,’ she explained, as she reached for the fork and imagined plunging it into his hard heart. ‘This seems an unlikely place to put that into practice.’

The stew consisted of large lumps of meat, roughly hewn vegetables and a gravy that owed a great deal to alcohol. She demolished it and mopped up the gravy with a hunk of bread, beyond good manners. Luke pushed a tumbler towards her. ‘Water. There’s a good clean well.’

‘How are you so well provisioned?’ she asked and tore another piece off the loaf. ‘There are how many of you? Ten? And you aren’t here legitimately, are you?’

‘I am,’ Luke said. He returned to his position by the hearth. ‘Mr Dornay—so far as the Governor is concerned—is a poet in search of solitude and inspiration for an epic work. I told him that I am nervous of being isolated from the inhabited islands by storms or fog, so I keep my stock of provisions high, even if that means stockpiling far more than one man could possibly need. And there are thirteen of us and we are most certainly here in secret.’

She stowed away the surname. When it came to a court of law, when she testified against the men who had imprisoned and assaulted her, she would remember every name, every face. If he left her alive. She swallowed the fear until it lay like a cold stone in her stomach. ‘A poet? You?’ He smiled, that cold, unamused smile, but did not answer. ‘When are you going to let me go?’

‘When we are done here.’ Luke pushed himself upright and went to the door. ‘I will leave you before the men eat all of my dinner. I’ll see you at supper time.’

His hand was on the latch when Averil realised she couldn’t deal with the uncertainty any longer. ‘Are you going to kill me?’

Luke turned. ‘If I wanted you dead all I had to do was throw you back or leave you here to die. I don’t kill women.’

‘You rape them, though. You are going to make me share your bed tonight, aren’t you?’ she flung back and then quailed at the anger that showed in every taut line of his face, his clenched fist as it rested on the door jamb. He is going to hit me.

‘You have shared my bed for three nights. Rest,’ he said, his even tone at variance with his expression. ‘And stop panicking.’ The door slammed behind him.

* * *

Luc stalked back to the fire. He wouldn’t be on this damn island with this crew of criminal rabble in the first place if it was not for the attempted rape of a woman. Averil Heydon was frightened and that showed sense: she’d had every reason to be terrified until he took her away from the men. He could admire the fierce way she had stood up to him, but it only made her more of a damn nuisance and a dangerous liability. Thank God he no longer had to nurse her; intimacy with her body was disturbing and he had felt himself becoming interested in her more than was safe or comfortable. Now she was no longer sick and needing him, that weakness would vanish. He did not want to care for anyone ever again.

The crew looked up with wary interest from their food as he approached. Luc dropped down on to the flat rock they had accepted as the captain’s chair and took a platter from the cook’s hand. ‘Good stew, Potts. You all bored?’ They looked it: bored and dangerous. On a ship he would exercise them too hard for them to even think about getting into trouble: gun drill, small arms drill, repairs, sail drill—anything to tire them out. Here they could do nothing that would make a noise and nothing that could be seen from the south or east.

Luc lifted his face to the breeze. ‘Still blowing from the nor’west. That was a rich East Indiaman by all accounts—it’ll be worth beachcombing.’ They watched him sideways, shifting uneasily at the amiable tone of voice, like dogs who expect a kick and get their ears scratched instead. ‘And you get to keep anything you find, so long as you don’t fight over it and you bring me any mermaids.’

Greed and a joke—simple tools, but they worked. The mood lifted and the men began to brag of past finds and speculate on what could be washed up.

‘Ferret, have you got any spare trousers?’