Introducing Louise Allen’s most scandalous trilogy yet!

DANGER & DESIRE

Leaving the sultry shores of India behind

them, the passengers of the Bengal Queen face a new life ahead in England—until a shipwreck throws their plans into disarray …

Can Alistair and Perdita’s

illicit onboard flirtation survive the

glittering social whirl of London?

Washed up on an island populated by ruffians,

virginal Averil must rely on

rebel captain Luc for protection.

And honourable Callum finds himself

falling for his brother’s fiancée!

Look for

RAVISHED BY THE RAKE August 2011

SEDUCED BY THE SCOUNDREL September 2011

MARRIED TO A STRANGER October 2011

from Mills & Boon® Historical

‘You could become my mistress.’

‘Your mistress?’ For a moment Averil did not seem to understand, and then her whole body went rigid with indignation. ‘Why, you …! You don’t think I am good enough to marry, but you would keep me for your pleasure!’ She wrenched round. ‘Let me go—’

Luc shifted his grip, afraid of hurting her, too aroused to release her. She thudded against his chest and he held her with one hand splayed on her back, the other in her hair, and kissed her. It was wrong, it was gloriously right, it was heaven. She tasted of wine and fruit and woman and he lost himself, drowning in her, until she twisted, jerking her knee up. If not for her hampering skirts she would have had him, square in the groin. As it was her knee hit him with painful force on the thigh and he tore his mouth free.

About the Author

LOUISE ALLEN has been immersing herself in history, real and fictional, for as long as she can remember, and finds landscapes and places evoke powerful images of the past. Louise lives in Bedfordshire, and works as a property manager, but spends as much time as possible with her husband at the cottage they are renovating on the north Norfolk coast, or travelling abroad. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite atmospheric destinations. Please visit Louise’s website—www.louiseallenregency.co.uk—for the latest news!

Previous novels by the same author:

VIRGIN SLAVE, BARBARIAN KING

THE DANGEROUS MR RYDER* THE OUTRAGEOUS LADY FELSHAM* THE SHOCKING LORD STANDON* THE DISGRACEFUL MR RAVENHURST* THE NOTORIOUS MR HURST* THE PIRATICAL MISS RAVENHURST* PRACTICAL WIDOW TO PASSIONATE MISTRESS** VICAR’S DAUGHTER TO VISCOUNT’S LADY** INNOCENT COURTESAN TO ADVENTURER’S BRIDE** RAVISHED BY THE RAKE†

*Those Scandalous Ravenhursts

**The Transformation of the Shelley Sisters

† Danger & Desire

and in Mills & Boon® Historical Undone! eBooks:

DISROBED AND DISHONOURED

Author Note

Once I had chosen the treacherous seas around the Isles of Scilly as the setting for the wreck of the Bengal Queen, right at the end of her three-month voyage from India, I knew I had to go there to experience the islands for myself.

The heroine of this novel was going to be washed ashore on one of the uninhabited islands—but which one? On the Scillies small boats take the place of cars and buses, and I spent a happy week in the sunshine—criss-crossing from island to island, waving at seals, walking on sand so fine it was exported for use to blot ink in the eighteenth century. Finally I chose St Helen’s, with its tiny old isolation hospital—a perfect base for the mysterious and dangerous man who will rescue Averil Heydon when she is washed, naked, onto the beach at his feet.

While I was there I was privileged to see the wonderful pilot gigs racing—their speed and the distances they can cover have not been exaggerated in this book. However, I have taken liberties with the Governor of the islands at the time, whose name and family are entirely imaginary and bear no resemblance to the real Governor.

Dedication

With happy memories

of a wonderful week on the Isles of Scilly

and the kind staff in the tiny library

Seduced

by the Scoundrel

Louise Allen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

March 16th, 1809—Isles of Scilly

It was a dream, the kind you have when you are almost awake. She was cold, wet … The cabin window must have opened in the night … she was so uncomfortable …

‘Look ‘ere, Jack, it’s a mermaid.’

‘Nah. Got legs, ain’t she? No tail. Never got that. How do you swive a mermaid if she ain’t got legs?’

Not a dream … nightmare. Wake up. Eyes won’t open. So cold. Hurt. Afraid, so afraid.

‘Is she dead, do yer reckon?’

Uncomprehending terror ran through her veins in the dream. Am I dead? Is this hell? They sound like demons. Lie still.

‘Looks fresh enough. She’ll do, even if she ain’t too lively. I ‘aven’t had a woman in five weeks.’

‘None of us ‘ave, stupid.’ The coarse voice came closer.

No! Had she screamed it aloud? Averil became fully conscious and with consciousness came memory and realisation and true terror: shipwreck and a great wave and then cold and churning water and the knowledge that she was going to die.

But she wasn’t dead. Under her was sand, cold, wet sand, and the wind blew across her skin and wavelets lapped at her ankles and her eyes were mercifully gummed shut with salt against this nightmare and everything hurt as though she’d been rolled in a barrel. Wind … skin … She was naked and those voices belonged to real men and they were coming closer and they wanted to … Lie still.

Something nudged her hard in the ribs and she flinched away, convulsed with fear, her body reacting while her mind screamed at it to be still.

‘She’s alive! Well, there’s a bit of luck.’ It was the first speaker, his voice gloating. She curled into a shivering ball, like a hedgehog stripped of its prickles. ‘You reckon we can get ‘er up behind those rocks before the others see ‘er? Don’t want to share, not ‘til we’ve had our fill.’

‘No!’ She jerked herself upright so she was sitting on the sand, her arms wrapped around her nakedness. It was worse now, not to be able to see. She dragged her eyes open against the sticky sting of the salt.

Her tormentors stood about two yards away, regarding her with identical expressions of lustful greed. Averil’s stomach churned as her instincts recognised the look. One man was big, with a gut that spoke of too much beer and muscles that bulged on his bare arms and calves like tree trunks. The one who had kicked her must be the skinny runt closer to her.

‘You come along with us, darlin’,’ the smaller one said and the wheedling tone had the sodden hairs on her neck rising. ‘We’ll get you nice and warm, won’t we, ‘Arry?’

‘I’d rather die,’ she managed to say. She dug her fingers into the wet sand and raked up two handfuls, but it flowed out of her grasp. There was nothing to use as a weapon, not even a pebble, and her hands were numb with cold.

‘Yer, well, what you want don’t come into it, darlin’.’ That must be Jack. Would it help if she used their names, tried to get them to see her as a human being and not just a thing for their use? She struggled to get her terrified brain to work. Could she run? No, her legs were numb, too, she would never be able to stand up.

‘Listen—my name is Averil. Jack, Harry—don’t you have sisters—?’

The big one swore foully and she heard the voices at the same time. ‘The others. Damn it, now we’ll ‘ave to share the bloss.’

Averil focused her stinging eyes along the beach. She sat on the rim of sand that fringed the sea. Above her a pebble beach merged into low rock outcrops and beyond that short turf sloped up to a hill. The voices belonged to a group of half-a-dozen men, sailors by the look of them, all in similar dark working clothes to the two who had found her.

At the sight of her they broke into a run and she found herself facing a semicircle of grinning, leering figures. Their laughter, their voices as they called coarse comments she could barely understand, their questions to Jack and Harry, beat on her ears and the scene began to blur as she closed her eyes. She was going to faint and when she fainted they would—

‘What the hell have you got there?’ The voice was educated, authoritative and rock hard. Averil sensed the men’s attention turn from her like iron filings attracted to a magnet and hope made her gasp with relief.

‘Mermaid, Cap’n.’ Harry sniggered. ‘Lost ‘er tail.’

‘Very nice, too,’ the voice said, very close now. ‘And you were about to bring her to me, I suppose?’

‘Why’d we do that, Cap’n?’

‘Captain’s prize.’ There was no pity in the dispassionate tone, only the clinical assessment of a piece of flotsam. The warm flood of hope receded like a retreating wave.

‘That’s not fair!’

‘Tough. This is not a democracy, Tubbs. She’s mine and that’s an order.’ Boots crunched over pebbles as the sound of furious muttering rose.

None of this was going to go away. Averil opened her eyes again and looked up. And up. He was big: rangy, with dark hair, a dominant nose. The uncompromising grey eyes, like the sea in winter, looked at her as a man studies a woman, not as a rescuer looks at a victim. There was straightforward masculine desire there, and, strangely, anger. ‘No,’ she whispered.

‘No, leave you to freeze to death, or, no, don’t take you away from your new friends?’ he asked. He was like a dark reflection of the men she had come to know over the past three months on the ship. Tough, intelligent men who had no need to swagger because they radiated confidence and authority. Alistair Lyndon, the twins Callum and Daniel Chatterton. Were they all dead now?

His voice was hard, his face showed no sympathy, but for all that he was better than the rabble on the beach. The big man had his hand on the hilt of a knife and her rescuer had his back to him. ‘Behind you,’ she said, ignoring the mockery.

‘Dawkins, leave that alone unless you want to end up like Nye.’ The dark man spoke without turning and she saw his hand rested on the butt of a pistol thrust in his belt. ‘There’s no money if you’re dead of a bullet in your fat gut. More for the others, though.’ He raised an eyebrow at Averil and she nodded, lured into complicity. No one else was touching a weapon. He shrugged out of his coat and dropped it over her shoulders. ‘Can you stand?’

‘No. T-t-t-too cold.’ Her teeth chattered and she tightened her jaw against the weakness.

He leaned down, caught her wrists and hauled her to her feet as she groped with clumsy fingers for the edges of the coat. It reached the curve of her buttocks, she could feel it chafing the skin there. ‘I’ll carry you,’ he said as he turned from raking a stare over the watching men.

‘No!’ She stumbled, grabbed at his arm. If he lifted her the coat would ride up, she’d be exposed.

‘They’ve seen everything there is to see already,’ he said. ‘Tubbs, give me your coat.’

‘It’ll get all wet,’ the man grumbled as he pulled it off and shambled down the beach to hand it over. His eyes were avid on her bare legs.

‘And you’ll get it back smelling of wet woman. Won’t that be nice?’ Her rescuer took it, wrapped it round her waist and then slung her over his shoulder. Averil gave a gasp of outrage, then realised: like this he had one hand free for his pistol.

Head down, she stared at the shifting ground. The coats did nothing against the cold, only emphasised her essential nakedness and shame. Averil fought against the faintness that threatened to sweep over her: she had to stay conscious. The man she had hoped would be her rescuer was nothing of the sort. At best he was going to rape her, at worst that gang of ruffians would attack him and they would all have her.

Last night—it must have been last night, or she’d be dead of the cold by now—she had known she was about to die. Now she wished she had.

The sound of crunching stones stopped, the angle at which she was hanging levelled off and she saw grass below. Then her captor stopped, ducked, and they were inside some kind of building. ‘Here.’ He dropped her like a sack of potatoes on to a lumpy surface. ‘Don’t go to sleep yet, you’re too cold.’

The door banged closed behind him and Averil hauled herself up. She was on a bed in a large stone-built hut with five other empty bed frames ranged along the walls. The rough straw in the mattress-bag crackled under her as she shifted to look round. There was a hearth with the ashes of a dead fire at one end, a wooden chair, a table with some crockery on it, a trunk. The hut had a window with threadbare sacking hanging over it, a few shelves, the plank door and a rough stone slab floor without so much as a rag rug.

Rather be dead … The self-pity brought tears to her eyes. The room steadied and her head stopped swimming. No, I wouldn’t. Averil knuckled the moisture out of her eyes and winced at the sting of the salt. The pain steadied her. She was not a coward and life—until a few hours ago—had been sweet and worth fighting for.

An upbringing as the pampered daughter of a wealthy family was no preparation for this, but she had fought off all the illnesses life in India could throw at her for twenty of her twenty-two years, she had coped with three months at sea in an East Indiaman and she’d survived a shipwreck. I am not going to die now, not like this, not without a struggle.

She must get up, now, and find a way out, a weapon before he came back. Averil dragged herself off the bed. There was a strange roaring in her ears and the room seemed to be moving. The floor was shifting, surely? Or was it her? Everything was growing very dark.

‘Hell and damnation.’ Luc slammed the door closed behind him. The sprawled naked figure on the floor did not so much as twitch. He picked up the pitcher from the table, knelt beside her and splashed water on her face. That did produce some reaction: she licked her lips.

‘Back to bed.’ He scooped her on to the lumpy mattress and pulled the blanket over her. The feel of her in his arms had been good. Too good to dwell on. As it was, the memory of her sitting like a mermaid on the beach with the surf creaming around her long, pale legs was enough to keep a man restless at night with the ache of desire.

He poured water into a beaker and went back to the bed. ‘Come on, wake up. You need water—drink.’ He knelt and put an arm behind her shoulders to lift her so he could put the beaker to her lips. To his relief she drank thirstily, blindly. Tangled dark blond hair stuck to his coat, bruises blossomed on lightly tanned skin. Long lashes flickered open to reveal dazed hazel-green eyes and then closed as though weighted with lead.

Then her head lolled to one side against his shoulder, she sighed and went limp.

‘Nom d’un nom d’un nom …’ This was the last thing he had planned for, an unconscious woman who needed to be cared for. If he put her into the skiff and sailed her across to St Mary’s and said he had found her on the beach, just one more survivor of the shipwreck last night, then she would be safe. But what if she remembered? Her seeing him did not matter: he had a cover story accepted by the Governor. But he had been with the men and was obviously their leader.

Luc looked down at the wet, matted tangle of hair that was all he could see of her now. She sighed and snuggled closer and he adjusted her so she fitted more comfortably against him while he thought. She was young, but not a girl. In her early twenties, perhaps. She had not been addled by her experience; her reaction when she warned him about Dawkins told him that she had her wits about her. In fact, she seemed both courageous and intelligent. What were the chances that she would forget all about this or would dismiss it as a nightmare?

Not good, he decided after a few more moments holding her. She might blurt out what she had seen to anyone when she regained consciousness and he had no idea who he had to be on his guard against, even in the Governor’s own household. Even the Governor himself.

His prudent choices were to leave her here with some food and water, lock the door and walk away—which would probably be as close to murder as rowing her out to sea and dropping her overboard would be—or to nurse her until she was strong enough to look after herself.

What did he know about nursing women? Nothing—but how different could it be from looking after a man? Luc looked at the slender figure huddled in the coarse blankets and admitted to himself that he was daunted. And when she woke, if she did, then she was not going to be best pleased to discover who had been looking after her. He could always point out the alternatives.

She had drunk something, at least. He would tell Potts to cook broth at dinner time and see if he could get that down her. And he supposed he had better wash the worst of the salt off her and check her for any injuries. Broken bones were more than likely.

Then he could get her into one of his shirts, make the bed more comfortable and leave her for a while. That would be good. He found he was sweating at the thought of touching her. Damn. He had to get out of here.

Luc stood on the threshold for a moment to get his breathing steady. He was in a bad way if a half-drowned woman aroused such desire in him. Her defiance and the intelligence in those bruised hazel eyes kept coming back to him and made him feel even worse for lusting after her in this state. Better he thought about the problem she would pose alive, conscious and aware of their presence here.

To distract himself he eyed the ships in St Helen’s Pool, the sheltered stretch of water bounded by St Helen’s where he stood, uninhabited Teän and St Martin’s to the east, and Tresco to the south.

That damned shipwreck on the reefs to the west had stirred up the navy like a stick thrust into an anthill. Even the smoke from the endless chain of kelp-burning pits around the shores of all the inhabited islands seemed less dense today. They must have searchers out everywhere looking for bodies and survivors. In fact, there was a jolly boat rowing towards him now. If she had been dead, or unconscious from the start, he could have off-loaded her on them. But then, if his luck was good, he would never have been here in the first place.

He glanced round, made certain the men were out of sight and strolled down to the beach to meet the boat, moving the pistol to the small of his back. Eccentric poets seeking solitude to write epic works did not, he guessed, walk around armed.

A midshipman stood up in the bows, his freckled face serious. How old was this brat? Seventeen? ‘Mr Dornay, sir?’ he hailed from the boat.

‘Yes. You’re enquiring about survivors from the wreck, I imagine? I heard the shouting and saw the lights last night, guessed what had happened. I walked right round the island at first light and I didn’t find anyone, dead or alive.’ No lie—he had not found her.

‘Thank you, sir. It was an East Indiaman that went down—big ship and a lot of souls on board. It will save us time not to have to search this island.’ The midshipman hesitated, frowning as he kept his balance in the swaying boat. ‘They said on St Martin that they saw a group of men out here yesterday and the Governor had only told us about you, sir, so we wondered. Writing poetry, he said.’ The young man obviously thought this was strange behaviour.

‘Yes,’ Luc agreed, cursing inwardly. The damn fools were supposed to stay out of sight of the inhabited islands. ‘A boat did land. A rough crew who said they were looking for locations for new kelp pits. I thought they were probably smugglers so I didn’t challenge them. They’ve gone now.’

‘Very wise, and you’re more than likely right, sir. Thank you. We’ll call again tomorrow.’

‘Don’t trouble, you’ve got enough on your plate. I’ve got a skiff, I’ll sail over if I find anything.’

The midshipman saluted as the sailors lifted their oars and propelled the jolly boat towards the southern edge of Teän to find a landing place. Luc wandered back up the beach until they were out of sight, then strode over the low shoulder to the left, behind the old isolation hospital he was using as his shelter and where the woman now lay.

He did a rapid headcount. They were all there, all twelve of the evil little crew he’d been saddled with. There had been thirteen of them at the start, but he’d had to shoot Nye when the man decided that sticking a knife in the captain’s ribs was easier than the mission they had been sent on. Luc’s unhesitating reaction had sharpened up the rest of them.

‘That was the navy,’ he said as they shifted from their comfortable circle around a small, almost smokeless, fire to look at him. ‘Someone on St Martin saw you yesterday. Stay round this side, don’t go farther east along the north shore than Didley’s Point.’

‘Or the nasty navy’ll get us?’ Tubbs sneered. ‘Then who’ll be in trouble, Cap’n?’

‘I’ll be deep in the dunghill,’ Luc agreed. ‘From where I can watch you all be hanged. Think on it.’

‘Yer. We’ll think on it while you’re prigging that mermaid we found you. Or ‘ave you come round for a bit of advice on technique, like? Sir,’ a lanky redhead asked, as he shifted a wad of chewing tobacco from one cheek to the other.

‘Generous of you to offer, Harris, but I’m letting her sleep. I prefer my women conscious.’ He leaned one hip against a boulder. Instinct told him not to reveal how ill she seemed to be. ‘It could be four or five more days before we get word. I don’t want you lot getting rusty. Check the pilot gig over this afternoon and we’ll exercise with it some more tomorrow.’

‘It’s fine,’ the redhead grumbled and spat a stream of brown liquid into the fire. ‘Looked at it yesterday. Just a skinny jolly boat, that’s all.’

‘Your expert opinion will be a consolation as we sink in the middle of the bloody ocean,’ Luc drawled. ‘Dinner going to cook itself is it, Potts? My guest fancies broth. Can you manage that? And, Patch, bring me a bucket of cold water and a bucket of warm, as soon as you can get some heated. I don’t want her to taste of salt.’

He did not bother to wait for a response, nor did he look back as he walked down to the little hospital building, although his spine crawled. At the moment they thought their best interests were served by obeying him and they were frightened enough of him not to push it, not after what had happened to Nye. That could change if the arrival of the woman proved to be the catalyst that tipped the fragile balance.

He needed them to believe her conscious and his property, not vulnerable and meaning nothing to him. He didn’t want to have to kill any more of them, gallows’-bait though they were: he needed twelve to carry out this mission and they were good seamen, even if they were scum.

Chapter Two

The light was coming from an odd angle. Averil blinked and rubbed her eyes and came fully awake with a jolt. She was not in her cabin on the Bengal Queen, but in some hut. She had seen it before—or had that been part of the nightmare, the one that never seemed to stop but just kept ebbing and flowing through her head? Sometimes it had become a pleasant dream of being held, of something soft and wet on her aching, stiff limbs, of strong hands holding her, of hot, savoury broth or cool water slipping between her lips.

Then the nightmare had come back again: the wave, the huge wave, that turned into a leering hulk of a man; of being stared at by a dozen pairs of hungry eyes. Sometimes it became a dream of embarrassment, of needing to relieve herself and someone helping her, of being lifted and placed on an uncomfortable bucket and wanting to cry, but not being able to wake up.

She lay quite still like a fawn in its nest of bracken, only her eyes daring to move and explore this strange place. Under the covers her hands strayed, and found coarse sheeting above and below, the prickle of a straw-filled mattress, then the finer touch of the linen garment that she was wearing.

There was no one else there. The room felt empty to her straining senses, she could hear nothing but the sea beyond the walls. Averil sat up with an involuntary whimper of pain. Everything hurt. Her muscles ached, there were sore patches on her legs, her back. When she got her arms above the covers and pushed back the flopping sleeves to look at them they were a mass of bruises and scratches and grazes.

She was wearing a man’s shirt. Memory began to come back, like pages torn at random from a picture book or sounds heard through a half-open door. A man’s voice had told her to drink, to eat. A man’s big hands had touched her body, held her, shifted her. Washed her, helped her to that bucket.

What else had he done? How long had she been unconscious and defenceless? Would she know if he had used her body as she lay there? She ached so much, would one more pain be felt?

Averil looked around and saw male clothing everywhere. A pair of boots stood by the window, a heap of creased linen spilled from a corner, a heavy coat hung from a nail. This was his space and he filled it, even in his absence. She twisted and looked at the pillow and saw a dark hair curling on it. This was his bed. She drew a deep, shuddering breath. For how long had he kept her here?

Water. A drink would make it easier to think. Then find a weapon. It was a plan of sorts, and even that made her feel a little stronger. She fumbled with fingers that were clumsy and stiff and threw back the covers. His shirt came part way down her thighs, but she was sitting on a creased sheet. Averil got to her feet, wrapped it around her waist, then staggered to the table. She made it as far as the chair before she collapsed on to it.

There was a jug beside a plate and a beaker on the table and she dragged it towards her with both hands. She spilled more than she poured, but it was clear and fresh and helped a little. Averil drank two beakers, then leaned her elbows on the table and dropped her head into her hands.

Think. It wasn’t only him, there were those other men. They had been reality, not a nightmare. Had he let them in here, too? Had he let them …? No, there was only the memory of the dark-haired man they had called Cap’n. Think. The rough wooden planks held no inspiration, but the knife next to the plate did. She picked it up, hefted it in her hand. He’d be coming back, and she might only have that one chance to kill him when he was off guard. When he was in bed. Kill? Could she? Yes, if it was that or … Her eyes swivelled to the bed. Under the pillow. She had to get back there. Somehow.

Her legs kept betraying her as she tottered to the bed, but she made it, just in time as the door opened.

He swept the hut with a look that seemed to take in everything. Averil clenched her hand around the knife under cover of the sheet, but it had been on the far side of the plate, out of sight from this angle. Surely he wouldn’t notice?

‘You are awake.’ He came right in, frowning, and looked at her as she sat on the edge of the bed. ‘You found the water?’

‘Yes.’ Come closer, turn those broad shoulders of yours, I’ll do it now, I only need a second. Where do you stab someone who is bigger and stronger than you? How do you stop them shouting, turning on you? High, that was it, on the left side above the heart. Strike downwards with both hands—

‘Where is the knife?’ He swivelled to look at her, a cold appraisal like a man sighting down the barrel of a weapon.

‘Knife?’

‘The one you are planning to cut my throat with. The one that was on the table.’

‘I was not planning to cut your throat.’ She threw it on the floor. Better that than have him search her for it. ‘I was going to stab you in the back.’

He picked it up and went to drop it back beside the plate. ‘It is like being threatened by a half-drowned kitten,’ he drawled. ‘I was beginning to think you would never wake up.’ Averil stared at him. Her face, she hoped, was expressionless. This was the man who had slept with her, washed her, fed her, probably ravished her. Before the wreck she would have watched him from under her lids, attracted by the strength of his face, the way he moved, the tough male elegance of him. Now that masculinity made her heart race for all the wrong reasons: fear, anxiety, confusion.

‘How long have I been here?’ she demanded. ‘A day?

A night?’

‘This is the fourth day since we found you.’

‘Four days?’ Three nights. Her guts twisted painfully. ‘Who looked after me? I remember being washed and—’ her face flamed ‘—a bucket. And soup.’

‘I did.’

‘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?’

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.

‘I could promise not to tell anyone,’ she ventured. ‘Yes?’ Again that cold smile. ‘You would connive at whatever you suspect we are about for the sake of your own safety?’

‘I …’ No, she could not and she knew it showed on her face.

‘No, I thought not.’ Luke pocketed the knife and turned from the table. ‘I will be back in half an hour—be in bed.’

Averil stacked the plates, swept the crumbs up, wrapped the heel of the loaf in a cloth and stoppered the wine flask. She supposed it would be a gesture if she refused to clean and tidy, but it gave her something to do; if she was going to be a prisoner here, she would not live in a slum.

It was cool now. That was why she was shivering, of course, she told herself as she swept the hearth with the crude brush made of twigs and added driftwood to the embers. The salty wood flared up, blue and gold, as she fiddled with the sacking over the window. What was going to happen was going to be private, at least. She wiped away one tear with the back of her hand.

I am a Heydon. I will not show fear, I will not beg and plead and weep, she vowed as she turned to face the crude bed. Nor would she be tumbled in a rats’ nest. Averil shook out the blankets, batted at the lumpy mattress until it lay smooth, spread the sheet that had been tied around her waist and plumped up the pillow as best she could.

She stood there in Luke’s shirt, her hair loose around her shoulders, and looked at the bed for a long moment. Then she threw back the blanket and climbed in, lay down, pulled it back over her and waited.

Luke spent some time by the shielded camp fire listening to the game of dice in one tent, the snores from another, and adding the odd comment to the discussion Harris and Ferret were having about the best wine shops in Lisbon. Some of the tension had ebbed out of the men with their efforts all day hunting along the shoreline for wreckage from the ship. Nothing of any great value had been found, but a small cask of spirits had contained just enough to mellow their mood.

He was putting off going back down to the little hospital, he was aware of that, just as he was aware of trying not to think too closely about Averil. He wanted her to stay an abstraction, a problem to be dealt with, not become a person. None of them wanted to be there, most of them were probably going to die; he had no emotion to spare to feel pity for some chit of a girl who, with any luck, was going to come out of this alive, although rather less innocent than she had begun.

‘Good night,’ he said without preamble and strode off down towards the hut. Ferret and Harris were on guard for the first two hours; they were reliable enough and had no need of him reminding them what they were looking out for or what to do under every possible circumstance. There was a lewd chuckle behind him, but he chose to ignore it; he could hardly control their thoughts.

The hut was tidy when he unlocked the door and stepped inside. There was a lamp still alight and the fire had been made up; Luc inhaled the tang of wood smoke and thought the place was as nearly cosy as it would ever be. But one look at the bed dispelled any thought that Averil had decided to welcome him and had set out to create an appropriate ambiance. She was lying under the blanket as stiff and straight as a corpse, her toes making a hillock at one end, her nose just visible above the edge of the covering at the other. He did not look at the swells and dips in between.

‘Averil?’ He moved soft-footed to the middle of the room and sat down to pull off his shoes.

‘I am awake.’ Her voice was as rigid as her body and he saw the reflected light glint on her eyes as she turned her head to watch him.

Luc dropped his coat and shirt over the back of the chair. As his hands went to the buckle of his belt he heard her draw a deep, shuddering breath. Well, he wasn’t going to undress in the dark; she was going to have to get used to him—or close her eyes.

‘Have you never seen a naked man before?’ he asked, slipping the leather from the clasp.

‘No. I mean, yes.’ Averil found it was difficult to articulate. She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘I was brought up in India—saddhus and other holy men often go naked.’ And there were carvings in the temples, although she had always assumed they were wildly exaggerated. ‘They smear themselves with ash,’ she added. Now she had started talking it was hard to stop.

Luke said nothing, simply turned towards the chair, stepped out of his trousers and draped them over the back with his other clothes. Averil shut her mouth with a snap, but her eyes would not close. This was not an ash-smeared emaciated holy man sitting under a peepul tree with his begging bowl, watching the world with wild, dark eyes. Luke was … She searched for a word and came up with impressive, which seemed inadequate for golden skin and long muscles and broad shoulders tapering into a strong back, down to narrow hips and—

He turned round and her mouth dropped open again, although all that came out was a strangled gasp. ‘You see what effect you have on me,’ he said, coming towards the bed with, apparently, no shame whatsoever.

‘Well, stop it,’ she snapped, then realised immediately how ridiculous it was. Obviously that was necessary for the humiliating and painful business that was about to occur. ‘Stop flaunting it,’ she amended in the tone of voice her aunt used for rebuking the servants.

Luke gave a snort of laughter, the first genuine amusement she had heard from him. ‘That part of the male body does what it wants. You could close your eyes,’ he suggested.

‘Is that supposed to make me feel any better? It will still be there.’

He shrugged, which produced interesting undulations in those beautiful muscles and made that bob in a most disconcerting way. She could well believe that it had a life of its own. She wanted to look away, but her neck seemed paralysed, as rigid as the rest of her.

Luke reached out and turned back the blanket. Averil forced herself not to grab it back. Don’t struggle, don’t react. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

‘Could you move over?’

‘Wh … what?’ She had been expecting something quite different, not this polite enquiry. He just had to get on top of her, didn’t he?

‘Shift across.’ Luke stopped, one knee on the bed. Averil found she could move her eyes after all; she fixed them on the cobwebbed rafters. ‘You aren’t expecting me to leap on you, are you?’ He sounded impatient and irritated, not crazed with lust. Perhaps he did this sort of thing all the time.

‘I have no idea what to expect,’ she flashed back. The anger and humiliation freed her locked muscles and she twisted round to sit up and confront him. ‘I am a virgin. How would I know how to go about being ravished?’

Chapter Four

He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I am going to sleep in this bed with you, that is all. Did you not realise? Did you still think I was going to force you, for heaven’s sake?’

‘Of course I did! I am not a mind reader!’ Fury flashed through her, obliterating the relief. She had been so frightened all day, she had tried so hard to be brave and now … now he was implying that she ought to have realised? That it was her fault she had been so scared?

‘Oh, you—you infuriating man!’ She lashed out, her hand hitting him across the chest with a dull thud. His skin was warm, the dark curls of hair surprisingly springy.

‘You want me to make love to you?’ He caught her wrists as she tried to hit him again. His hands were hard and calloused against her pampered skin and this close she could smell him—fresh sweat over traces of some plain soap and what must be the natural scent of his skin.

‘Make love? Is that what you call it? No, I don’t want you to make love or ravish me or anything else. I’ve been terrified all day and now you tell me you never had any intention—’ She ran out of words and sat there in the tangle of blankets glaring at him, holding on to her temper because if she did not the alternative was to give way to tears.

‘I do not ravish women,’ Luke said flatly and released her hands. ‘Unconscious or awake.’ She had insulted him, it appeared. Good. She had not thought it possible.

‘Then what are you doing with that?’ Averil made a wild gesture at his groin and he recoiled before her flailing hand made contact.

‘I told you, it has a life of its own. I don’t have to take any notice of it.’ Luc sounded torn between exasperation and anger. ‘I am sorry you were frightened unnecessarily,’ he added, with as much contrition as if he was apologising for jostling her elbow at a party. ‘I thought you realised I had no intention of hurting you in any way. If you can just move over so I can get in, we can go to sleep.’

‘Just like that? You expect me to be able to close my eyes and sleep with you in the bed?’ She heard the rising note of hysteria and bit her lower lip until the pain steadied her. The relief of realising he was not going to take her had cracked her self-control; now it was hard to hang on to some semblance of calm. ‘Why can’t you put some clothes on?’

‘I have no spare clean shirts to wear—you are wearing the last one. And one more layer of linen between us will make no difference to anything.’

She wondered what the grinding noise was and then realised it was her own teeth. At least if Luke was in the bed with the covers over him she couldn’t see his naked body. It was an effort not to flounce, but she turned on her side with her back to him and lay against the far edge of the bed, her face to the wall.

The ropes supporting the mattress creaked, the blankets flapped. ‘There is no need to rub your nose against the stones like that,’ Luke said. ‘Come here.’ He put an arm around her waist and pulled her backwards until she fitted tight against the curve of his body. ‘Stop wriggling, for heaven’s sake!’

‘We are touching,’ Averil said with what calm she could muster, which was not much. He was warm and hard and her buttocks were pressed against the part of his anatomy that he said had a mind of its own—and was still very interested by the situation by the feel of it—and one linen shirt was absolutely no barrier whatsoever. Below the edge of the shirt her thighs were bare and she could feel the hairs on his legs.

‘I am certainly aware of your cold feet,’ he said and she thought he was gritting his teeth. ‘Will you stop moaning, woman? You’re alive, aren’t you? And warm and dry and fed and still a virgin. Now lie still, count your blessings and let me sleep and you might stay one.’ She thought she heard a muttered If I can but she was not certain.

Woman? Moaning? You lout, she fulminated, as she tried to hold her body a rigid half-inch away from his. But that only pushed her buttocks closer into his groin. The heavy arm across her waist tightened and she gave up and let her muscles relax a little.

Count my blessings. It was a distraction from the heat and solidity behind her and the movement of his chest and the way his breath was warm on her neck. She was alive and so many people were not, she was certain. She had kept their faces and the sound of their voices out of her mind all day; now she could not manage it any longer. Her friends, so close after three months, and her numerous acquaintances, even the people she glimpsed every day but had never spoken to, were like the inhabitants of some small hamlet, swallowed up entire by the sea.

Averil composed herself and prayed for them, her lips moving with the unspoken words. She felt better for that, the grief and worry a little assuaged. The long body curled around hers had relaxed, too; he was sleeping, or at least, on the cusp of sleep. I am alive, and he is protecting me. For now I am safe. But the dark thoughts fluttered like bats against the defences she tried to erect in her mind. These men were deserters, traitors perhaps, and she knew too much about them already. What might she have to do to maintain even the precarious safety she had now?

Luc felt Averil’s body go limp as she slid into sleep. He let himself relax against her as her breathing changed and allowed himself to enjoy the sensation of having a woman so close in his arms. The softness and the curves were a delicious torment; the female scent of her, not obscured by any soap or perfume, was dangerously arousing. It was over two months since he had lain with a woman, he realised, thinking back over the turbulent past weeks. And then they had been making love, not lying together like this, almost innocently.

The tight knot in his gut reminded him that he was still angry that Averil had supposed he would take her by force. Luc thought back over the words they had exchanged—they hardly qualified as conversations—and tried to work out why she had thought him capable of rape. He had never once said he would make use of her body, he was certain of that, and he had explained why he needed to share her bed.

She had been tired and frightened by all she had gone through; obviously she had not been thinking clearly, he told himself. He supposed stripping off had not been tactful—but she could have shut her eyes, Luc thought with a stirring of resentment. If she wanted him to wear a nightshirt, then she could do some washing tomorrow; he had too much else to think about without worrying about Averil’s affronted sensibilities.

It did occur to him as he began to drift off to sleep that he was not used to being with well-bred young women on an intimate level. He had been at sea, more or less permanently, since he had been eighteen; he had no sisters at home, no young sisters-in-law. No one, thank heaven, to have to care about. Not any more.

But this wasn’t some society drawing room or Almack’s. To hell with it, she was in his territory now and she would just have to listen to what he said and follow orders. His aching groin reminded him that something else was refusing to follow orders. It would be interesting to seduce her, he thought, toying with the fantasy as he let sleep take him. Just how difficult would it be?

* * *

Averil woke with an absolute awareness of where she was and who she was with. In the night she had turned over and now she half lay on Luke’s chest with her naked legs entangled with his. One moment she had been relaxed in deep sleep, the next her eyes snapped open on a view of naked skin, a tangle of dark curls and an uncompromising chin furred with stubble. He smelled warmly of sweat and salt and sleep. She should have recoiled in disgust, but she had the urge to snuggle closer, let her hands explore.

Every one of her muscles tensed to fight the desire.

‘You’re awake,’ he said, his voice a deep rumble under her ear, and moved, rolling her on to her back so his weight was half over her. ‘Good morning.’

‘Get off me!’ Averil shoved, which had no effect whatsoever. ‘You said you don’t ravish women, you lying swine.’

‘I don’t. But I do kiss them.’ He was too close to focus on properly, too close to hit, but ears were easy to get hold of and sensitive to pain. She reached up a hand, got a firm grip and twisted. ‘Yow!’ Luke had her wrist in his grasp in seconds. ‘You little cat.’

‘At least I am not a liar.’ She lay flat on her back, her hands trapped above her head, her senses full of the smell and feel of him, her heart pounding. She had hurt him, but he had not retaliated and there was amusement, not lust or anger, in his eyes, as though he was inviting her to share in a game.

But she was not going to play—that was outrageous. Luke was too big even to buck against, although she tried. And then stopped as her pelvis met his and that rebellious part of his body twitched eagerly against her belly. Something within her stirred in response, a low, intimate tingling. She blushed. Her body wanted to join in with whatever wickedness his was proposing.

‘Since when has kissing amounted to ravishment? I need us to go out there looking as though we have just been making love.’ There was exasperation under the patience and somehow that was reassuring. If he was bent on ravishing her he would not be discussing it. Still, it was wrong to simply succumb so easily.

‘Making love?’ She snorted at the word and he narrowed his eyes at her.

‘Do you prefer having sex? It will make life easier for both of us if you can give the impression that you have been seduced by my superior technique and are now happy to be with me.’

Averil was about to tell him what her opinion of his technique was when his words the previous evening came back to her. A pack of wolves. ‘I see,’ she conceded. ‘I am safer if I do not seem like a victim. If I am happy to be with you, then it is convincing that I would be confident. And they will think I am unlikely to try to escape and put you all in danger.’

‘Exactly.’ Luke breathed out like a man who had been braced for a long argument. ‘Now—’ He bent his head.

This was not how it was supposed to be, the first time. This was the antithesis of romance. And I wanted romance, tenderness …

‘You don’t have to kiss me. I can pretend,’ Averil said as she tried to move her head away. She only succeeded in clashing noses. Luke had a lot of nose to clash with. But she did not want to pretend. She realised that it was herself and her own desires that were the danger, not him.

‘You are an innocent, aren’t you?’ That was not a compliment. ‘Never been thoroughly kissed?’

‘Certainly not!’ She had never been kissed at all, but she was not going to tell him that.

‘You’ll see,’ Luke said, releasing her wrists and capturing her mouth.

It was outrageous! He opened his mouth over hers, pushed his tongue inside and … and … Averil gave up trying to think about what was going on so she could fight him. But she did not seem to have any strength; her muscles wouldn’t obey her and the rest of her body was in outright mutiny.

Her arms were round his neck, her fingers were raking through his hair, her breasts were pushing against his chest—which had to be why they ached so—and her lips …

Her lips moved against Luke’s, answering his caress, and it was, some stunned part of her mind that was still working realised, a caress and not an assault. His mouth was firm and dominant, but that dominance was curiously arousing. The heat and the moistness were arousing too and the thrust of his tongue was so indecent … and yet she wanted to echo it, move her own tongue, although she did not dare.

Against her stomach she felt his flesh pulsing and lengthening and sensed the restraint he was imposing on himself. Her legs wanted to open, to cradle him, and her aunt’s words came back and made sense now of what had seemed embarrassingly ludicrous before. He only had to move a little, to thrust. Suddenly she was frightened again and he sensed it.

‘Averil?’ They looked at each other, noses almost touching. ‘Have you ever been kissed before?’ Mute, she shook her head.

‘I thought not.’ He threw back the covers and got out of bed, the sudden cool rush of air as effective in cutting through her sensual daze as his abrupt words had been. This time she had the sense to turn her head away from his nudity and to stare at the wall. After a few minutes he came back. ‘Averil?’

‘Yes?’ She kept her head averted.

‘Look.’ She risked a quick look. He was holding out a small mirror. ‘You see?’

A wanton creature stared back at her in the scrap of glass. Its hair was a wild tangle, its eyes were wide and dark and its mouth—her mouth—was swollen and pouting.

‘Oh,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, my. Does it last?’

Luke had moved away and was lifting some things down off the shelf, but at that he turned his head and studied her. ‘For a bit. Then I have to do it again.’ She felt the crimson flood up from breast to forehead and his lips quirked. He looked thoughtful. He had, thank goodness, put on his clothes. ‘I’ll get you some hot water. When you come out don’t forget that you have been conscious these past four days.’

Averil sat up as the door banged behind Luke. One kiss and she felt like this—and she didn’t even like the man, or want him. He thought it was amusing, the wretch. It was not amusing, it was outrageous and shameful, those were the only possible words for it. Her breasts still tingled, her stomach felt very strange—almost as though she was apprehensive, but not quite the same—and lower down there was the most embarrassing awareness and that strange little pulse stirring. He had made her feel like this—and he must have realised—and then he had stopped.

The door opened, Luc dumped a bucket inside and then closed it again. Whatever his morning toilette consisted of, he was performing it elsewhere. Averil climbed out of the tangled bedding and went to fetch the hot water. Then I have to do it again, Luke had said.

‘Oh, my heavens,’ she murmured. ‘I had no idea.’

Luc stood on the shore, pocket watch in hand, as half-a-dozen of the crew fitted the oars in the rowlocks and pulled away towards the bulk of Round Island to the north. There were no other ships or boats out in the area and it seemed a good opportunity to work the excess energy out of the men.

Behind him the others lounged on the short grass, jeering at the rowers. ‘You reckon you’ll do better?’ Luc asked. ‘You drew the short straw—you’ll be rowing with breakfast in your bellies to weigh you down and they’re pushing to get back to eat.’

‘Wot about the mermaid—Miss Heydon, I mean, Cap’n? I’ll take her breakfast down to her, shall I?’ Harris’s tone could have served as a definition of the verb to leer.

‘I—’ Luc broke off as a figure walked over the shoulder of the hill. ‘No need, Harris, Miss Heydon has come to eat with us.’

He had to admire her. From the set of her shoulders and the frown between her brows she was as tense as any sensible woman would be under the circumstances, but her back was straight, her chin was up and she had scraped back her hair into a plait down her back in a way that must have been intended to diminish her attractiveness. The fact that it simply showed off her bruised cheekbones and her wide hazel eyes was not her fault, Luc pondered appreciatively as she got closer.

He saw with satisfaction and a sharp pang of arousal that her mouth was still lush and swollen from his kisses. He had never kissed a complete innocent before and it had been … interesting. He wanted her. Was he going to have her? It was a stimulating fantasy, that and the thought that by the time he took her she would want it just as much as he did.

‘Good morning,’ she said, her voice as coolly polite as if they were all in a drawing room. ‘Is that breakfast? You are Mr Potts—the one who cooks?’

Potts gawped, displaying his few remaining teeth, then, to Luc’s amazement, touched a finger to his forehead. Goodness knew how long it had been since someone had addressed him as Mister, if they ever had. ‘Aye, er … ma’am, I am and ‘tis that. Got mackerel or bacon, unless you fancy porridge, but it’s wot you might call lumpy.’

‘I would like bacon and some bread please, Mr Potts.’ Averil sat down on the flat rock Luc usually took for himself. He wondered if anyone else noticed the automatic gesture to sweep her non-existent skirts out of the way. ‘And is there tea?’

‘Aye, ma’am. No milk, though.’

‘Really? Never mind.’ She turned and looked directly at Luc for the first time, as haughty as a duchess at a tea party. ‘Couldn’t you have stolen a goat?’ She was overdoing the confidence and completely forgetting that she was supposed to have just passed a night of bliss in his arms.

‘We did not plan on company,’ he said with an inimical glance at the cook. Potts might well decide that a raid on the neighbouring islands to steal some livestock would be amusing. ‘And we will not be drawing attention to ourselves by stirring up the islanders and lifting their goats either.’

Potts grunted; he knew a warning when he heard it. Luc studied Averil and was rewarded by the colour staining her cheeks. So, she was still agitated by that kiss; it was strangely satisfying to know that he had unsettled her like that—and it would be a pleasure to do so again. He was not used to virgins and Averil’s untutored responsiveness was unexpected. It was doubtful whether she realised she had responded—it was all very new to her and she had been too shocked to think.

The other men had been down by the water’s edge, catcalling at their rapidly vanishing comrades. Now they turned and began to walk back to the fire, their focus on the woman in the badly fitting clothes. He saw her eyes widen and darken as the haughty young lady vanished, leaving a girl who looked ready to run. His hand rested on the hilt of his knife as he watched the men’s reaction. Would they react as he intended or would they turn as a pack and attack to get at the girl?

Chapter Five

Luc saw Averil’s eyes dart from one man to the other and the almost imperceptible relaxation when she realised that Tubbs and Dawkins, the two who had found her, were not there. He had sent them off with the first crew so they would be too winded for an immediate reaction when they encountered Averil again. In their turn the men stared at her with interest, but the mood was different from when they had found her on the beach. He took his hand from his knife and shifted his weight off the balls of his feet.

Time to mark his territory. Luc took two platters from Potts and went to the rock where Averil sat, legs primly together, hands clasped in her lap. ‘You’re in my seat,’ he said and got a cool stare in return. In the depth of her hazel eyes fear flickered, but she tipped up her chin and stared him out. ‘We’re lovers, remember, ‘he mouthed and she blushed harder and shifted to make room for him next to her, hip to hip.

Luc handed her a plate and touched her cheek with the back of his free hand. ‘Hungry, sweetheart?’

‘Ravenous,’ she admitted dulcetly, her eyes darting daggers at him. She folded the bread around the slices of bacon and bit into it. ‘This is good, Mr Potts.’

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ the cook said, then spoiled it by adding slyly, ‘nothing like a bit of exercise to give you an appetite, I always say.’

‘Quite,’ Averil retorted. ‘That hut was in a shocking state—it took a lot of work to tidy it up.’

Thwarted, Potts returned to his frying pan, glowering at the grins of the other men. They were good-humoured smiles, Luc noticed, neither jeering nor directed at the young woman on the rock. ‘Well done,’ he murmured. She narrowed her eyes at him, so he added more loudly, ‘I’ve a pile of washing needs doing.’

‘I am sure you have, Luke darling,’ Averil said, then softened her tone with an effort he could see. ‘I will need hot water, please.’

‘See to it after breakfast, Potts.’

‘Is she doing all our washing, Cap’n?’ Ferret asked through a mouthful of herring.

‘Miss Heydon is not doing anything for you, Ferret.’

‘Are you the man who lent me these clothes?’ Averil asked as Potts handed her a mug of black tea.

‘Aye, ma’m.’

‘Is Ferret your real name? Surely not.’ She took a sip of tea and gasped audibly at the strength of it.

‘Er … it’s Ferris, ma’am.’ ‘Thank you, Mr Ferris.’

The man grinned. ‘Pleasure to help the Cap’n’s lady, ma’am.’

The others said nothing, but Luc sensed, with the acute awareness of his men any captain learns to acquire, that something in their mood had changed. They had stopped thinking of Averil as a nameless creature for their careless pleasure and started regarding her, not just as his property, but as a person. She was frightened of them still, wisely so—they had not forgotten that she was a woman and they had been celibate for weeks. He could feel the apprehension coming off her like heat from a fire, but she had the intelligence and the guts to engage with them.

Miss Averil Heydon was a darned nuisance and enough to keep any man awake half the night with lustful thoughts and an aching groin, but he was beginning to admire the chit. Admiration did nothing to dampen desire, he discovered.

‘They’re coming,’ Tom the Patch said, his one eye screwed up against the sun dazzle on the waves.

Luc pulled out his watch. ‘They need to do better than that.’

‘Nasty cross-current just there,’ Sam Bull observed with the air of a man determined to be fair at all costs.

‘These waters are one big cross-current,’ Luc said. ‘You reckon you can do better?’

‘Yeah,’ Bull said, and nodded his curly head. ‘Easy.’

They are training for something, Averil thought, watching the men as she sipped the disgusting tea. Her teeth, if they had any enamel left, would be black, she was sure.

The men were a crew, a real ship’s crew, not a motley group of fugitives. They weren’t hiding here because they were deserters, or waiting for someone to come and take them off. It was incredible how much more she was noticing now her terror had abated a little. Instinct had told her to try to treat the men as individuals and, strangely, that had been easier to do over the shared food than it had been to pretend an intimacy with Luke that she did not feel.

Or, at least, she corrected herself as she felt the warmth of his thigh through the thickness of their trousers, she felt an intimacy, just not one involving any sort of affection or trust.

He was a good officer though, albeit a rogue commanding rogues. She had seen enough army officers in her time in India, and she had watched how the Bengal Queen was run; she could recognise authority when she saw it.

The men were focused on the approaching boat while Luke ate his bacon, his eyes on the pilot gig, too. ‘Why are you here?’ she asked, low voiced.

He shook his head without looking at her.

‘Deserters have no need to train for speed,’ she carried on, speculating. ‘And why steal one of those big rowing boats, why not a sailing ship? A brig—you have enough men to crew a brig, haven’t you?’

‘You ask too many questions,’ Luke said, his eyes still trained on the sea. ‘That is dangerous, be quiet.’

A threat—or a warning? Averil put down her empty plate and mug and studied his profile. She could believe he was a man of violence, one who would kill if he had to and do it with trained efficiency, but she could not believe now that he would kill her. If he had been capable of that, he would have been capable of raping her last night.

‘It is less dangerous to tell me the truth.’

‘For whom?’ he asked. But there was the slightest curve to the corner of his mouth and Averil relaxed a little. ‘Perhaps later.’

The rowers were close now and she could see Tubbs at the tiller and Hawkins heaving on an oar. Some sound must have escaped her lips for Luke turned towards her. ‘They won’t hurt you—you are mine now.’ He dipped his head and the shock of his mouth on hers, here, where the men could see them, froze her into immobility. It was a rapid, hard kiss on the lips, nothing more, but it felt startlingly possessive and so did the way his hand stayed on her shoulder when he stood to watch the men land, his pocket watch in the other palm. That big hand would curl into a formidable fist in her defence. She could feel the pressure of each finger and shivered—how would it feel if he caressed her?

‘Not bad,’ he called down to the rowers as they splashed through the shallow surf and up the beach. ‘You could do better. The rest of you, get going. On my mark—now!’

There was a scramble as the others heaved themselves aboard and began to back-water away from the shore. The first crew, without a backward glance, made for the fire and the food Potts had left for them. Then they saw Averil on her rock and they slowed like a pack of dogs sighting a cat, their eyes narrowing.

Luke left his hand where it was for a moment longer, then strolled down to meet them. ‘Close your mouth, Tubbs, or something will fly in,’ he said mildly. The man muttered and a snigger went round the group as their eyes shifted between Luke and Averil.

She wanted to run. Instead she got to her feet, picked up Luke’s plate and walked down to the fire. ‘More bacon, darling?’ Somehow she produced the purr that her friend Dita had managed to get into the most innocuous sentence when she wanted to flirt. Dita, who was probably drowned. Averil blinked back the prickle of tears: Dita would have both charmed and intimidated this rabble.

Close now, they gawped at her and Averil remembered what Luke had said about the wolf pack. These men eyed Luke as much as they ogled her, on the watch for his reaction, edgy as if they waited for him to snarl and lash out if they encroached on his property.

‘Will the others beat your time, do you think?’ she asked, direct to Tubbs.

He blinked, startled, as if the frying pan had addressed him. ‘I reckon we’re better by a length,’ he said when Luke did not react.

‘The boat looks very manoeuvrable. At least it seems so to me. I have been on an East Indiaman for three months, so any small boat looks fast.’ She sat on the grass by Luke who had hunkered down, apparently intent on the gig. Without looking at her he put out his arm and tugged her closer and the men’s eyes shifted uneasily. Now what? Instinct told her to keep talking to them, make them acknowledge her as a person, not a commodity, but she dared say nothing that would seem as if she was probing into their purpose here.

‘Had a lot of treasure on it, did it?’ Dawkins said.

‘Not bullion, I’m sure. But there would have been silks, spices, gem stones, ivory, rare woods—those sorts of things.’ There could be no harm in telling them; the cargo would have gone down or been ruined by the water.

‘You come from India, then?’ one of the men asked. Luke began to stroke the side of her neck languidly, as a man pulls the ears of his gun dog while they sit and wait for the ducks to rise to the guns.

Averil found she was leaning in to him, her lids were drooping … She made herself focus. ‘Yes, India. I lived there almost all my life.’

‘Ever see a tiger?’

‘Lots of them. And elephants and huge snakes and crocodiles and monkeys.’

‘Cor. I’d like to see those. Did you ride on the elephants?’

They asked questions, and she answered, for almost twenty minutes. She felt better, safer in their presence now. Almost safe enough to be alone with them, she thought and then caught Dawkins’s eye and almost recoiled. What the big man was thinking about was plain to see and her whole body cringed against Luke.

His hand stilled. ‘What?’ he murmured.

‘Nothing.’

He stood, pulling her to her feet. ‘Just time to show you that washing I want doing. Timmins, bring a bucket of hot water and one of cold from the well.’

‘I suppose you realise I have never washed a garment in my life, let alone a male one,’ Averil said as they walked back to the old hospital.

‘Men’s clothing ought to be easier,’ Luke said. ‘No frills, no lace, stronger fabric.’

‘Sweatier, dirtier, larger,’ Averil retorted. She lifted one hand and touched her neck where he had been stroking it. The skin felt warm and soft, and her own touch sent a shiver of awareness through her that was disconcerting. She had not wanted him to stop, she realised, shamed by her reaction. What was the matter with her? Was she naturally a complete wanton, or was it shock, or perhaps simply instinct to try to please the man who could protect her?

‘You are a belligerent little thing, aren’t you?’ Luke said as they stepped into the hut.

‘You would be belligerent under the circumstances,’ she snapped. ‘And I am not little. I am more than medium height.’

‘Hmm,’ he said, and turned, trapping her between the wall and his body. ‘No, not little at all.’

‘Take your hands off my … my breasts.’

‘But they are so delightful.’ He was cupping them in his big hands, the slight movement of his thumbs perceptible through the linen of the shirt.

‘Don’t,’ she pleaded, as much to her own treacherous body as to him.

‘But you like it. Look.’

Shamed, she looked down. Her nipples thrust against the fabric, aching, tight little points, demanding attention.

‘I cannot help that reaction, any more than you can help that, apparently.’ The bulge straining against his breeches was very obvious. Luke moved back a little and she remembered another of her brothers’ lessons. But his reactions were faster than hers. No sooner had she begun to raise her knee that she was flat against the stones, his weight pinning her.

‘Little witch,’ he said and bent his head.

The kiss was different standing up. Even though she was trapped Averil felt she had more control, or perhaps she was just more used to the sensations now. She found she no longer wanted to fight him, which was disconcerting. She moved her head to the side and licked into the corner of Luke’s mouth, then nipped at his lower lip, almost, but not quite hard enough to draw blood. He growled and thrust his pelvis against her, blatantly making her feel what she was doing to him.

Averil let him take her mouth again, aching, wanting, despite the part of her mind that was screaming Stop! She was going to have to sleep with this man again tonight—was he going to be able to control himself after this?

‘Damn it,’ Luke said. He lifted his head and looked down at her, his eyes dark, his breath short. ‘I think you’ve been sent to try my will-power to the limit—’

The door banged open behind them, and he turned away so abruptly that she almost fell. ‘Over there by the table, Timmins.’

The man put down the buckets and walked out while Averil hung back in the shadows behind the door. He must have guessed what they had been doing, she thought, her face aflame.

‘I can’t do this any more,’ she said the moment they were alone. ‘I cannot. I don’t understand how it makes me feel. I am not wanton, I am not a flirt. I don’t even like you! You are big and ugly and violent and—’

‘Ugly?’ Luke stopped sorting through the heap of linen in the corner and raised an eyebrow. Nothing else she had said appeared to have made the slightest impression on him.

‘Your nose is too big.’

‘It balances my jaw. I inherited it from my father.’ He tossed the tangle of clothing on to the table. ‘There is some soap on the shelf.’

‘Did you not hear a word I said just now?’ Averil demanded, standing in his path, hands on hips.

‘I heard,’ Luke said as he dragged her back into his arms and kissed her with such ruthless efficiency that she tottered backwards and sat down on the bed with a thump when he released her. ‘I just do not intend to take any notice of you losing your nerve.

‘You’ll get over it. Make sure the collars and cuffs are well scrubbed. You can dry them on the bushes on the far side of the rise. Just make certain you keep the hut between you and the line of sight from the sea.’

Averil stared at the unresponsive door as it closed behind him and wished she had listened and taken note when she had overheard the sailors swearing on board the Bengal Queen. It would be very satisfying to let rip with a stream of oaths, she was quite certain.

Castration, disembowelling and the application of hot tar to parts of a certain gentleman—if he deserved the name—would be even more satisfying. She visualised it for a moment. Then, seized with the need to do something physical, if throttling Luke was not an option, Averil shrugged out of the leather waistcoat, rolled up her sleeves and went to find the soap. It was just a pity there was no starch or she would make sure he couldn’t sit down for a week, his drawers would be so rigid.

She began to sort the clothing, muttering vengefully as she did so. None of it was very dirty—the captain was obviously fastidious about his linen. It also smelled of him, which was disconcerting. Was it normal to feel so flustered by a man that even his shirts made one think of the body that had worn them?

Averil searched for marks, rubbed them with the soap, then dropped those garments in the hot water. How long did they have to soak? She wished she had paid more attention to the women doing their washing in the rivers in India; they seemed to get everything spotless even when the water was muddy. And it was cold, of course.

She was scrubbing briskly at the wristbands of one shirt before she caught herself. What was she doing, offering comfort to the enemy like this? Let him launder his own linen—or do whatever he would have done if she hadn’t been conveniently washed up to do it for him. But then, she was clad in his shirt and he said he had no clean ones, so if she did not do it, goodness knew when she would get a change of linen herself.

Her fingers were as wrinkled as they had been when she had come out of the sea, and she had rubbed a sore spot on two knuckles, but the clothes were clean and rinsed at last. Wringing them dry was a task beyond her strength, she found, so she dumped the dirty water outside on the shingle, filled the buckets with the wet clothes and trudged up the slope towards the camp fire.

The buckets were heavy and she was panting by the time she could put them down. ‘Would someone who has clean hands help me to—?’ Luke was nowhere in sight and she was facing eight men, with Dawkins in the middle.

‘Aye, darlin’, I can help you,’ he drawled, getting to his feet.

‘Leave it out, Harry.’ Potts looked up from a half-skinned rabbit. ‘She’s the Cap’n’s woman and we can do without you getting the man riled up. He’s got a nasty temper when he’s not happy and then he’ll shoot you and then we’ll have more work to do with one man less. Besides …’ he winked at Averil who was measuring the distance to his cooking knives and trying not to panic ‘.the lady likes my cooking.’ He lifted one knife, the long blade sharpened to a lethal degree, and examined it with studious care.

‘Just joking, Potts.’ Dawkins sat down again, his brown eyes sliding round to the knife. The cook stuck it into the turf close to his hand and went back to pulling the skin off the rabbit as the whole group relaxed. Averil began to breathe again.

‘I’ll wring ‘em, ma’m.’ A big man with an eyepatch got to his feet and shambled over. ‘I’m Tom the Patch, ma’am, and me ‘ands are clean.’ He held up his great calloused paws for inspection like a child. ‘Where do you want ‘em?’

‘I’ll drape them over those bushes.’ Averil let out the breath she had been holding and pointed halfway up the slope.

‘Not there,’ Potts said. ‘They’ll see you.’

‘Who will?’

‘Anyone in a ship looking this way. Or on Tresco. Put ‘em there.’ He waved a bloody hand at the thinner bushes close to the fire. Potts, she was beginning to realise, had either more intelligence, or more sense of responsibility, than the other men. Perhaps he had been a petty officer of some kind once.

‘Why don’t you want anyone to know you are here?’ Averil asked as Tom twisted the shirts and the water poured out.

‘Hasn’t the Cap’n said?’ He dropped one shirt into the bucket and picked up another.

‘We haven’t had much time to talk,’ she said and then blushed as the whole group burst into guffaws of laughter.

‘Why not share the joke?’ Luke strolled out from behind one of the tumbledown stone walls. He had his coat hooked over one finger and hanging down his back, his shirt collar was open, his neckcloth was loose and he gave every indication of just coming back from a relaxing stroll around the island. Averil suspected that he had been behind the wall ever since she had approached the men, waiting to see what happened, testing their mood.

‘I said that we had not talked much.’ She hefted the bucket with the wrung linen and walked towards the bushes. Any gentleman would have taken the heavy pail from her, but Luke let her walk right past him.

‘No, we have not,’ he said to her back as she shook out each item with a snap and spread it on the prickly gorse. ‘I’ll tell you over dinner.’

‘Tell ‘er all about it, will you, Frenchy?’ Dawkins said and the whole group went quiet.

Frenchy? Averil spun round. He was French? And that made the men … what? Not just deserters—turncoats and traitors.

‘You call me Captain, Dawkins,’ Luke said and she saw he had the pistol in his hand, loose by his side. ‘Or the next time I will shoot your bloody ear off. Nothing to stop you rowing, you understand, just enough to make sure you spend what is left of your miserable life maimed. Comprends-tu?’

The man might not have understood the insult in the way he had just been addressed, but Averil did. And her French was good enough to recognise in those two words not the pure accent of someone carefully taught as she had been, but a touch of originality, a hint of a regional inflection. The man was French. But we are at war with France, she thought, stupid with shock.

‘Aye, Cap’n,’ Dawkins said, his face sullen. ‘Just me little joke.’

‘Go back to the hut, Miss Heydon,’ Luke said over his shoulder. ‘I will join you at dinner time.’

‘I do not want to go to the hut. I want an explanation. Now.’ It was madness to challenge him in front of the men; she realised it as soon as she spoke. If he would not take insubordination from Dawkins, he was most certainly not going to tolerate it from a woman.

‘You get what I choose to give you, when I choose,’ Luke said, his back still turned. ‘Go, now, unless you wish to be turned over my knee and taught to obey orders in front of the men.’

Her dignity was all she had left. Somehow she kept her chin up and her lips tight on the angry words as she walked past him, past the silent sailors and down the slope towards the hut. Bastard. Beast. Traitor …

No, she realised as she got into the hut and flung herself down on a chair, Luke was not a traitor. If he was French, he was an enemy. The enemy. And she was sitting here, an obedient little captive who shuddered under his hands and wanted his kisses and washed his shirts and trailed back here when she was told. She was an Englishwoman—she had a duty to fight as much as any man had.

Averil jumped to her feet, sending the chair crashing to the floor, and twitched back the crude curtain. There was a navy ship at anchor out there—too far to hail, and probably, unless someone had a glass trained on the island, too far to signal with anything she had to hand. But she could swim. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? If she ran down to the sea, plunged in and swam, surely they would see her? And if Luke gave chase then that would create even more of a stir. Someone would come to investigate and, even if he shot her, he would have to explain the commotion.

She was out of the door and running before she could think of any objections, any qualms to slow her with fear. The big pebbles hindered her, but she was clear of them, up to her knees in the water, before she heard anything behind her.

‘Get back here!’

Luke! She did not turn or reply, only ploughed doggedly on, fighting through the thigh-high waves. ‘Stop or I will shoot!’

He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t shoot a woman in the back. Even a French agent wouldn’t—

She didn’t hear the shot, only felt the impact, a thumping blow below her left shoulder, behind her heart. It pitched her forwards into the sea and everything clouded and went dark. Her last thought as she felt the water closing over her head was of shocked anger. He said he would not kill me. Liar.

Chapter Six

‘Wake up.’

It seemed that the voice had been nagging at her for hours. Days, perhaps. She did not want to wake up. She did not think she was dead and this obviously was not heaven unless angels habitually sounded angry and impatient. But even if she was alive, Luke had shot her. Why should she have to wake up and face that? It would hurt.

‘Why should I?’ Averil asked.

‘So I can strangle you?’ the voice enquired and became identifiable as Luke.

‘You shot me.’ She opened her eyes, surprised to find she was not frightened or in great pain. Perhaps she was in shock. Best to lie very still—she was badly wounded, surely she must have lost a great deal of blood?

‘I did not shoot you.’ He was looming over the bed, tight-lipped and furious. ‘I threw a stone at you and you seem to have fainted.’

‘Oh.’ Averil sat up and yelped in pain. ‘It hurts! You could have killed me if you had hit my head.’

‘I hit what I aim at,’ Luke said. ‘It is just a bruise. You might want to cover yourself up.’

Averil glanced down and found she was naked. Again. Her borrowed clothes were draped, steaming, over chairs in front of the fire. She grabbed the edge of the blanket, pulled it up to her chin and sat there glowering back at him.

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