Seduced by the Scoundrel

Ferris—known to all as Ferret from his remarkable resemblance to the animal—hoisted his skinny frame up from the horizontal. ‘I ‘ave, Cap’n. Me Sunday best, they are. Brought ‘em along in case we went to church.’

‘Where you would steal the communion plate, no doubt. Are they clean?’

‘They are,’ he said, affronted, his nose twitching. And it might be the truth—there was a rumour that Ferret had been known to take a bath on occasion.

‘Then you’ll lend them to Miss Heydon.’

That provoked a chorus of whistles and guffaws. ‘Miss Heydon, eh! Cor, a mermaid with a name!’

‘Wot she want trousers for, Cap’n?’ Ferret demanded. ‘Don’t need trousers in bed.’

‘When I don’t want her in bed she can get up and make herself useful. She’s had enough time lying about getting over her ducking,’ Luc said. He had not given the men any reason to suppose Averil was unconscious and vulnerable. They had believed he was spending time in her bed, not that he was nursing her. His frequent absences seemed to have increased their admiration for him—or for his stamina. ‘I’ll have that leather waistcoat of yours while you’re at it.’

Ferret got to his feet and scurried off to the motley collection of canvas shelters under the lea of the hill that filled the centre of the island. St Helen’s was less than three-quarters of a mile across at its widest and rough stone structures littered the north-western slopes. Luc supposed they must have been the habitations of some ancient peoples, but he was no antiquarian. Now he was just glad of the shelter they gave to the men on the only flank of St Helen’s that could not be overlooked from Tresco or St Martin’s.

Stew finished, Luc got to his feet, took a small telescope from the pocket of his coat and turned to climb the hill. It took little effort, and he reckoned it was only about a hundred and thirty feet above the sea, but from here he commanded a wide panorama of the waters around the Scillies as well as being able to watch the men without them being aware of it. Beachcombing would keep them busy, but he did not want a knifing over some disputed treasure.

He put his notebook on a flat rock and set himself to log the patterns of movement between the islands, particularly the location of the brigs and the pilot gigs, the thirty-two-foot rowing boats that cut through the water at a speed that left the navy jolly-boat crews gasping. The calculations kept his mind off the woman in the hut below.

With six men on the oars the pilot gigs were said to venture as far afield as Roscoff smuggling, although the Revenue cutters did their best to stop them. They got their name from their legitimate purpose, to row out to incoming ships and drop off the pilots who were essential in this nightmare of rocks and reefs.

The gig he’d been given for this mission lay on the beach below, waiting for the word to launch with six men on the oars and the other seven of them crammed into the remaining space as best they could. Beside it was his own small skiff that he used to give verisimilitude to the story of his lone existence here.

For the men hunting amongst the rocks below him what happened next would bring either death or a pardon for their crimes. For him, if he survived and succeeded in carrying out his orders, it might restore the honour he had lost in following his conscience. Luc shied a pebble down the slope, sending a stonechat fluttering away with a furious alarm call.

Scolding loudly, the little bird resumed its perch on top of a gorse bush. ‘Easy for you to say, mon cher,’ Luc told it, as he narrowed his eyes against the sunlight on the waves. ‘All you have to worry about is the kestrel and his claws.’ Life and death—that was easy. Right and wrong, honour and expediency—now those were harder choices.

Chapter Three

Averil sat by the window with the old sack hooked back and studied what she could see through the thick, salt-stained glass. Sloping grass, a band of large pebbles that would be impossible to run on—or even cross quietly—then a fringe of sand that was disappearing under the rising tide.

Beyond, out in the sheltered sound, ships bobbed at anchor. Navy ships. Rescue, if only they were not too far away to hail. She could light a fire—but they knew Luke was here, so they would see nothing out of the ordinary in that. Set fire to the hut? But it was a sturdy stone building, so that wouldn’t work. Signal from the window with a sheet? But first she would have to break the thick glass, then think of something that would attract their attention without alerting her captors.

With a sigh she went back to searching the room. Luke had left his razor on a high shelf, but after the episode with the knife she did not think he would give her a chance to use it and she was beginning to doubt whether she had it in her to kill a man. That was her conscience, she told herself, distracted for a moment by wondering why. It was nothing to do with the fact that she kept wondering if he could really be as bad as he appeared.

Intense grey eyes mean nothing, you fool, she chided herself. When darkness came he would come back here and then he would ravish her. His protestations about not taking an unconscious woman surely meant nothing, not now she was awake.

Averil thought about the ‘little talk’ her aunt had had with her just before she sailed for England and an arranged marriage. There would be no female relative there to explain things to her before her marriage to the man she had never met, so the process had been outlined in all its embarrassing improbability, leaving her far too much time, in her opinion, to think about it on the three-month voyage.

Her friend Lady Perdita Brooke, who had been sent to India in disgrace after an unwise elopement, had intimated that it was rather a pleasurable experience with the right man. Dita had not considered what it would be like being forced by some ruffian in a stone hut on an island, surrounded by a pack of even worse villains. But then, Dita would have had no qualms about using that knife.

The light began to fail. Soon he would be here and she had no plan. To fight, or not to fight? He could overpower her easily, she realised that. She knew a few simple tricks to repel importunate males, thanks to her brothers, but none of them would be much use in a situation like this where there was no one to hear her screams and nowhere to run to.

If she fought him, he would probably hurt her even more badly than she feared. Best to simply lie there like a corpse, to treat him with disdain and show no fear, only that she despised him.

That was more easily resolved than done she found when the door opened again and Luke came in followed by two of the men. One carried what looked like a bundle of clothes, the other balanced platters and had a bottle stuck under his arm.

Averil turned her head away, chin up, so that she did not have to look at them and read the avid imaginings in their eyes. She was not the only one thinking about what would happen here tonight.

‘Come and eat.’ Luke pushed the key into his pocket and moved away from the door when they had gone. ‘I have found clothes for you. They will be too large, but they are clean.’ He watched her as she trailed her sheet skirts to the chair. ‘I’ll light the fire, you are shivering.’

‘I am not cold.’ She was, but she did not want to turn this into a travesty of cosy domesticity, with a fire crackling in the grate, candles set around and food and wine.

‘Of course you are. Don’t try to lie to me. You are cold and frightened.’ He stated it as a fact, not with any sympathy or compassion in his voice that she could detect. Perhaps he knew that kind words might make her cry and that this brisk practicality would brace her. He lit a candle, then knelt and built the fire with a practised economy of movement.

Who is he? His accent was impeccable, his hands, although scarred and calloused, were clean with carefully trimmed nails. Half an hour with a barber, then put him in evening clothes and he could stroll into any society gathering without attracting a glance.

No, that was not true. He would attract the glances of any woman there. It made her angrier with him, the fact that she found him physically attractive even as he repelled her for what he was, what he intended to do. How could she? It was humiliating and baffling. She had not even the excuse of being dazzled by a classically handsome face or charm or skilful flirtation. What she felt was a very basic feminine desire. Lust, she told herself, was a sin.

‘Eat.’ The fire blazed up, shadows flickered in the corners and the room became instantly warmer, more intimate, just as she had feared. Luke poured wine and pushed the beaker towards her. ‘And drink. It will make things easier.’

‘For whom?’ Averil enquired and the corner of his mouth moved in what might have been a half smile. But she drank and felt the insidious warmth relax her. Weaken her, just as he intended, she was sure. ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’

‘Writing bad poetry, beachcombing.’ He shrugged and cut a hunk of cheese.

‘Don’t play with me,’ she snapped. ‘Are you wreckers? Smugglers?’

‘Neither.’ He spared the cheese a disapproving frown, but ate it anyway.

‘You were Navy once, weren’t you?’ she asked, on sudden impulse. ‘Are you deserters?’

‘We were Navy,’ he agreed and cut her a slice of bread as though they were discussing the weather. ‘And if we were to return now I dare say most of us would hang.’

Averil made herself eat while she digested that. They must be deserters, then. It took a lot of thinking about and she drank a full beaker of wine before she realised it had gone. Perhaps it would help with what was to come … She pushed the thought into a dark cupboard in the back of her mind and tried to eat. She needed her strength to endure, if not to fight.

Luke meanwhile ate solidly, like a man without a care in the world. ‘Are you running to the French?’ she asked when the cheese and the cold boiled bacon were all gone.

‘The French would kill us as readily as the British,’ he said, with a thin smile for a joke she did not understand.

The meal was finished at last. Luke pushed back his chair and sat, long legs out in front of him, as relaxed as a big cat. Averil contemplated the table with its empty platters, bread crumbs and the heel of the loaf. ‘Do you expect me to act as your housemaid as well as your whore?’ she asked.

The response was immediate, lightning-swift. The man who had seemed so relaxed was on his feet and brought her with him with one hand tight around her wrist. Luke held her there so they stood toe to toe, breast to breast. His eyes were iron-dark and intense on her face; there was no ice there now and she shivered at the anger in them.

‘Listen to me and think,’ he said, his voice soft in chilling contrast to the violence of his reaction. ‘Those men out there are a wolf pack, with as much conscience and mercy as wolves. I lead them, not because they are sworn to me or like me, not because we share a cause we believe in, but because, just now, they fear me more than they fear the alternatives.

‘If I show them any weakness—anything at all—they will turn on me. And while I can fight, I cannot defeat twelve men. You are like a lighted match in a powder store. They want you—all of them do—and they have no scruples about sharing, so they’ll operate as a gang. If they believe you are my woman and that I will kill for you, then that gives them pause—do they want you so much they will risk death? They know I would kill at least half of them before they got to you.’

He released her and Averil stumbled back against the table. Her nostrils were full of the scent of angry male and her heart was pattering out of rhythm with fear and a primitive reaction to his strength. ‘They won’t know if I am your woman or not,’ she stammered.

‘You really are a little innocent.’ His smile was grim and she thought distractedly that although he seemed to smile readily enough she had never seen any true amusement on his face. ‘What do they think we’ve been doing every time I come down here? And they will know when they see you, just as wolves would know. You will share my bed again tonight and you will come out of this place in the morning with my scent on your body, as yours has been on mine these past days. Or would you like to shorten things by walking out there now and getting us both killed?’

‘I would prefer to live,’ Averil said and closed her fingers tight on the edge of the table to hold herself up. ‘And I have no doubt that you are the lesser of the two evils.’ She was proud of the way she kept her chin up and that there was hardly a quiver in her voice. ‘Doubtless a fate worse than death is an exaggeration. You intend to let me out of here tomorrow, then?’

‘They need to get used to you being around. Locked up in here you are an interesting mystery, out there, dressed like a boy, working, you will be less of a provocation.’

‘Why not simply let me go? Why not signal a boat and say you have found me on the beach?’

‘Because you have seen the men. You know too much,’ he said and reached for the open clasp knife that lay on the table. Averil watched as the heavy blade clicked back into place.