Devil's Mistress (11 page)

Sloan came to her and lifted her chin. “Are you dismayed?” he asked her, his voice suspiciously solicitous. “Don’t be. Mary is a kind woman, you will be safe in her keeping.”

She pulled her chin from his grasp and met his eyes with a bitter smile. “How do you plan to introduce me to our chaste princess, Treveryan?”

He sighed with impatience. “Have you no comprehension whatever, girl? It makes no difference! I could not, in all conscience, set you ashore! Until Matthews is stopped, you will not be safe anywhere in England or Scotland—or even Wales.”

“That’s not true! If I went to my family—”

“They could do nothing if Matthews found you!” Sloan interrupted savagely. Then he emitted a groan and turned from her. “Mary grew up in her uncle’s court. James kept as many mistresses as Charles. She will hardly be shocked.”

The argument made no difference. Brianna was certain that he was wrong, and that she could hide for as long as was necessary with the Powells. But she could not help arguing with him and mocking him for his negligent assumptions. “No,” she told Sloan with saccharine sweetness, “Mary will merely assume that I am your current entertainment.”

“Entertainment?” Sloan queried, spinning to face her once again, his hands tensing over his hips as his anger rose. “Lass, you have been anything but entertaining. You have been a complete nuisance to me. If it will stop your shrewish tongue, I will assure you that I will tell Mary of your predicament—and that I seek to give you asylum only.”

She lowered her head quickly, trying to remember that she must keep her thoughts hidden from him, and that to do so, she should learn to control her temper—and her tongue. She spoke quietly to him.

“It will stop my shrewish tongue if you will assure me that you truly wish to give me asylum and ask nothing in return.” With the words out she faced him again.

For long seconds they glared at one another. Brianna could almost feel the heat of his anger; it seemed to crackle about him. She quailed within, yet would not allow her eyes to fall from his, nor relinquish her stand. She could not bear the tension that riddled the air, so she spoke, trying desperately to keep entirely calm. There were things she wanted from him—things she wanted back!

“I know you must think me ungrateful. I am not. I do thank you, again, for saving my life. But if you did so, it was, I believe, your own choice. I don’t owe you anything, and yet you continue to take from me. I—”

“I continue to take from you?” He interrupted softly—his voice a rasp of silk. “To what are we referring? Your clothing? I did assure you it would be returned, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did,” she agreed quietly. “But when will I have it?”

He walked closer to her, as he brought a hand to her cheek. She shuddered slightly at that touch; no matter how infuriated she became, she could not deny the startling heat of his caress and its unnerving effect upon her.

“Oh … soon, I would think,” he assured her.

Rather than meet his eyes she allowed her lashes to fall. “Thank you,” she murmured demurely.

“Brianna?”

“Yes?” She raised her eyes to his.

He smiled, and for a brief moment she was allowed to feel a little thrill in her art of craft and seduction. But then that victory was dashed as he said simply, “You won’t get the money back.”

Her smile faded; open hostility filled her eyes and she stepped back from him furiously.

“Why not? It’s mine—I earned it!” she snapped, bitterly mocking herself.

Sloan laughed, walking toward the cabin door, then turning back to her and grinning as he leaned idly against the paneling. “I’m not so sure that you did earn it. A man hires a … lady of the streets for her to pleasure him. I don’t remember your going terribly out of your way to be the obliging one.”

The taunt touched her soul like blazing iron. Without thought or reason she swept across the small cabin, determined to fell him with her furious blows.

She did, at least, force his grin to fade quickly. But that was all. Her wrists were quickly secured behind her back and she found herself pressed hard against his chest, her breasts heaving with exertion.

“When will you learn!” he exploded harshly. “I care for you, little fool, and I will not see you dead by your own folly!”

“My life is my own!” Brianna cried out in protest. “I am not related to fools! I can find shelter. I can remain hidden.”

He shook his head, sadly, his anger fading.

“I am not a man known for his patience,” he told her quietly. “Don’t keep testing it.”

She lowered her head. “Let me go,” she told him dully.

He released her, stepping back. None of the tension left his strong and resolute features, but when he spoke, it was with a measure of patience once more.

“Brianna, what has happened cannot be erased. I cannot give back what I have taken. I haven’t forced anything from you, nor will I. You must stay in this cabin, for you are not safe abovedecks without me—and I am far too busy to worry about your effect upon the men. You must sleep in that bed, for there is nowhere else where you may safely sleep. Whether it is a palatable situation to both of us or neither of us, you have become my responsibility—and must remain so, for the time being.”

“You are a liar, Treveryan!” she charged hotly. “What of the woman whose clothing I wear? She had her own quarters—and, I would assume, the run of the ship!”

There was a furious tick of a pulse against his throat, yet he remained in a deathly calm control. “I had a smaller crew when she was aboard. Sleeping arrangements have changed.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“And I don’t give a damn what you do and do not believe! This is my ship, I am the captain, and so help me God, you will follow my orders. Do you understand?”

“Oh, I think I understand too well,” she replied bitterly.

“Just so that you do,” he warned in a chilling whisper.

She lifted her chin and spoke softly. “How long will we be at sea, Lord Treveryan?”

He shrugged. “Three to four weeks, depending upon the weather.”

“And you suggest that I not leave this cabin all that time?”

He sighed. “I’ll take you out for a stroll on deck each afternoon. But you will have to find a way to entertain yourself for the greater part of the day. The panel behind the bed slips open, and you’ll find a number of books. Do you read?” At Brianna’s nod he continued. “Should you happen to do anything so useful as sewing, and not find the task too distasteful, I’ve shirts within the wardrobe which could use the tender touch of a needle.”

She didn’t reply. Sloan noted that she stood very straight, but that the sweep of her lashes hid the blue flames of her eyes.

“Good afternoon,” he told her cordially, sweeping her a very proper bow—and allowing a wicked grin to filter across his lips in the midst of it.

As he closed the door behind him, Brianna was very much tempted to throw something after him.

The days they sailed south upon the Irish Sea were long ones.

Sloan did not come to his cabin until late at night, and when he did arrive, Brianna feigned sleep. She had found a nightgown among the clothing given her by Paddy, and she wore it each evening, grateful that it was modest.

He unfailingly stripped without a shade of self-consciousness before stretching beside her. But he did not touch her. Not once. And it seemed that she heard his even breathing almost instantly when his head touched his pillow.

He was always gone when she awoke in the morning, but he returned to the cabin in the midmorning to breakfast with her. He spoke to her very courteously at those times, as if the nights did not exist, and as if they had never been lovers.

Often, in the late afternoon, he would escort her about the ship. Within days she had learned a great deal about the
Sea Hawk.
He brought her to the cargo holds and showed her where the guns were placed. She learned the names of the numerous sails, and she met the fifty-man crew one by one. They ranged in age from youths to graybeards, and just as widely in social standing. Younger sons from noble families sought their fortunes at sea, just as did the strapping sons of commoners.

Some were rough and quarrelsome, some quiet and genteel; but they all seemed to share one common trait—an intense loyalty to Lord Sloan Treveryan. She knew that their respect for their captain kept them all cordial to her. Yet she often winced when they passed a group of the sailors, for she felt the gazes they raked over her form. They knew that she slept in the captain’s cabin—assumed her to be “his”—and perhaps envied him.

Brianna had seen Sloan roar out orders with the severity of a fire-breathing dragon; she had also learned that service and valor were rewarded, that double portions of rum were doled out each time the crew brought the
Sea Hawk
through a storm or treacherous shoal.

Although she came to know the ship and the men, it was all for show. The promise of escape was the hope that she clung to. Every day she plotted her escape; how to slip the lock should it be turned, which passages to take, where to dive from the ship to the sea, should that prove necessary.

She awoke slowly one morning to realize that she was becoming accustomed to the sounds of the sea—the wind as it whistled through the rigging, the waves as they lapped and crashed against hull and bow. And as she closed her eyes once more to savor the gentle sounds of morning and close out the brilliance of the sunlight streaming into the cabin, she realized unhappily that she was also becoming accustomed to Sloan Treveryan.

Although he was distant, as if his mind were far from her, their life aboard ship had assumed a certain domesticity. Boredom had taken its toll upon her, and bit by bit she had come to keep the cabin impeccably neat; she even mended his shirts. More often than not they shared their meals. And every night she waited for him. Waited to feel his heat as he slid his long form beside hers. He always smelled so cleanly of salt air and the sea, he exuded a masculine strength, and despite herself, she longed to curl against him, to be held, to touch him. It was agony to know that she must despise him and escape him—when she could not, inside herself, deny his allure. When she could not pretend that his arms were not those of a strong and fascinating man, that he was not arresting, that his eyes did not touch her all the way to her soul. And so she lay awake wretchedly, sometimes barely breathing, sometimes praying that he would shift and slip his arm around her, stroke her hair, edge closer to her—and then praying fervently that he would not.

She could not deny to herself that she was falling beneath his spell. Perhaps, falling a little bit in love. Sometimes, she allowed herself to dream. To envision that he might marry her, love her, and cherish her.

It was a sweet dream, a bitter dream. Yet it went on. She wondered if he could love her; and in that wondering, she could not help but think that he was a man to do what he chose to do, rather than follow convention.

If he loved her, he would marry her.

It was a dangerous fantasy. Very dangerous. Sloan Treveryan was a lord, and a man as fiercely independent as she longed to be. She urged herself strenuously away from dreams and fantasies, and set herself firmly to remember that she must maintain her distance from him—and escape him as soon as possible.

Before she lost more of herself to him than she already had. Without malice he had taken her innocence. She grew ever more terrified that if she did not cling to outrage and fury, he would also take her heart.

Sloan’s temper had been growing shorter and shorter during the endless days, until his control over it was almost nonexistent.

He had been polite, he had been reserved. He had escorted her unerringly. He had been certain that she would begin to bend—and then yield. They lived together, damn it!

But she didn’t bend—and she didn’t yield.

He knew she was awake—when he entered the cabin at night—and each time he heard her relieved sigh when she assumed he was asleep, he wanted to pounce upon her like a tiger.

But he couldn’t. As he lay beside her, unable to reach out, feeling the light fall of her every breath, the curve of her body so close, his muscles would constrict, sweat would break out upon his brow and he would remember her so vividly that he bit into his lip until he drew blood to keep from groaning out in the depths of an agonized shudder. Finally, he would sleep.

Their battles—for the most part—had abated. She had ceased to rail against him. She kept a cool distance, answering his every question, speaking civilly, even caring for his clothing and cabin. And yet she was more untouchable than any queen. Always it seemed that something simmered beneath the surface, a brooding tempest that seemed destined to erupt.

“Damn witch!” Sloan muttered, staring portside to the coast of England. The sun was shining brilliantly and everything that surrounded him, the fresh sea air, the warmth, the sound of the waves, was beautiful. But the beauty of the day did nothing for his mood, and he sighed. He had been avoiding his own cabin and Brianna this morning.

“Paddy—take the wheel!” he called out.

“Aye, aye, Cap’n!” Paddy returned, hurrying from a task at the rigging to take Sloan’s place. Sloan felt that his mate was amused as he gazed at him—which further irked him.