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He recoiled, staring at the board. ‘Good God.’
Another man who thought women didn’t have any mental capacity. She smiled tightly. ‘Thank you for a close-run game.’
He glanced up at her face, shock lingering in his eyes like shadows. ‘I had no idea how much I’d forgotten.’
At least he hadn’t accused her of cheating as one gentleman had. ‘You played well enough.’
Staring at the board, he gulped down his wine, his Adam’s apple rising and falling as he swallowed. He leaned forwards, gaze intent, as if replaying the game. Finally he looked up at her, with a sort of boyish eagerness that robbed her of breath. ‘Where did I go wrong?’
With effort, she gathered her thoughts. ‘I took advantage of your mistakes.’
He didn’t look the slightest bit insulted by her honesty. She found herself liking him for that. Blast it. She really did have no sense when it came to men. ‘Then I must do better. Next time.’
There wasn’t going to be a next time. She hoped.
He cocked his head, listening. ‘The hour grows late.’
She heard only the breeze singing in the rigging and the slap of the waves against the hull from the open window. She glanced at him questioningly.
‘The men are all abed, except those on watch.’
The revelry outside had died away long ago. She’d been too intent on their game and fielding his sharp questions to notice the passage of time. She swallowed. ‘I should leave.’
‘I have many more questions. Drink your wine, Miss Fulton.’ He gestured at her glass. ‘Come, a toast.’
To humour him, she picked up her glass.
‘To success,’ he said.
‘Yours or mine?’
‘Mine.’ While she sipped, he drank deeply. When he lowered his glass the predatory expression was back on his face.
The cabin seemed stuffy all at once, airless and hot. The skin on her scalp tightened the way it did before a lightning storm and she knew she had to bring the evening to a close. Somehow she had to end this tête-à-tête on a friendly note.
She stood and carried her glass to the window on legs that felt the way they did the first moments on land after a long voyage. Like wet rags. Unfortunately, this voyage was far from over and a storm loomed on the horizon.
She gazed out into the dark, breathing in the salt air. ‘I must thank you for a pleasant evening.’
Cat-like, on silent feet, he appeared behind her, his face reflected in the glass over her shoulder, his smile a glimmer of white. The warmth radiating from his body fired off a storm of heat in her own. A demented blush from head to toe, thankfully hidden in the dark reflection.
‘You were right about me,’ he said, his voice low, his body warm at her back. ‘Once, I also had all the advantages of wealth and position.’ Deep beneath the easy tone, she heard great sorrow.
She resisted the urge to sympathise. She’d heard many similar tales. It was the women she pitied. ‘Did you lose your money in one of London’s hells? Is that why you prey on ships? Stealing what you lost?’ It happened all the time. Fortunes won and lost in a night. Men who committed suicide in the cold light of the following day.
She shuddered. At least Father preferred the comfort of brandy.
His reflected gaze skewered her like a blade. ‘I can never replace what I lost.’
The depth of pain in those words scoured her ridiculously soft heart like sand carried on a desert wind. ‘You lost the family estate?’
The silence stretched taut and painful. The urge to fill it, to pretend things were normal, brought words to her lips. ‘What will you do when the war is over? When there are no more letters of marque? When peace allows no ships to be taken?’
The long exhale of breath, a sigh of longing he probably wasn’t aware of. ‘I plan to return to England where I have unfinished business.’
‘You think you will be welcome?’
‘A man with money is always welcome.’
A bitter truth. She said nothing.
‘What about you, Miss Fulton? What do you hope for? A husband? Children?’ He breathed softly in her ear. ‘A lover on the side?’
Her nipples tightened, felt sensitive against her stays. Furious at herself, she spun around to face him.
Chest to chest they stared at each other. His eyes glittered dangerously. A sign of intoxication? Or anger?
He clasped his warm hand over hers on the stem of her glass. Hot against her cold skin. The diamond-sharp facets pressed into her palm. ‘You tremble, Miss Fulton. I wonder why?’ Holding her gaze, he took the glass from her hand and set it on the table.
His eyes turned slumberous. A sensual awareness flashed between them too strong to ignore. It had been there all night, connecting them with a filament of heat. Now, standing close to him, the minute sliver of air between their bodies practically crackled.
His lips hovered a few inches from hers. The warmth of his body washed up against her skin. He was going to kiss her. A mad kind of yearning filled her empty heart. She swayed closer. Her eyelids fluttered shut. The scent of sandalwood cologne and fresh sea air filled her nostrils.
He cursed.
She blinked.
He pressed his fingertips to his temple and squeezed his eyes shut.
‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.
Michael stared at her. Wrong? For a moment he didn’t recognise the word as a flash of light seared jagged through the space behind his eyes.
‘Are you in pain?’ Her voice was soft, gentle and kind. Her hazel eyes filled with concern. ‘Is it your arm?’
Why the hell did Alice Fulton have to be kind? ‘I’m all right.’
Another stab, more insistent. Why was this happening now? Right when he had everything in his grasp.
She tilted her head in puzzlement. ‘Perhaps a fever brought on by your wound?’
He stared at her, the words garbling in his head, the lights in the cabin unbearably bright. ‘Get out.’ The words came out like the snarl of a wild beast.
She backed away.
Another flash of light. Her face wavered, blurred, then righted. He had less than half an hour.
Another round of flickering stabs. This time behind his forehead. Any moment now he’d be a useless shipwreck cast up on the beach of his aching head.
Too much wine. Why the hell had he drunk so much?
The pain spiked. He rubbed his temples, seeking relief. A grinding throb set up home at the base of his skull.
No holding this one off. He grabbed for her again. ‘You’re leaving.’
Her eyes widened, filling with fear. He didn’t care. He had to get her out of here. He would not let her see him brought to his knees.
‘It’s your head,’ she said. ‘Let me—’
‘No,’ he said, tugging cruelly hard on her wrist.
Anger. A hot raging beast he couldn’t control crawled up his throat. ‘Move.’ Dragging her along, he strode for the door. He flung it open.
‘Simpson,’ he roared. ‘Take her to the hold.’ Peering through the blinding haze, he thrust her outside. Simpson would see to her. He wouldn’t let him down.
God damn it all.
Thoughts whipped around in his head like storm-damaged rigging in a gale. Faces skittered across his memory. Meg falling. His beloved mother and father surrounded by flames. And Jaimie.
The light from the candles burned through his closed eyelids. Barbed arrows tore into his brain. The urge to hit something bunched his muscles. He stormed around his cabin, flinging things aside, looking for the source of his pain. The light.
The punishing light.
‘Simpson,’ he bellowed. ‘Where the hell are you?’
A flicker of sanity gave him the answer. Gone with the girl. The daughter of his enemy.
He found the bed and ripped off the covers. Found the hooks. Nausea rose in his throat. He gripped the blanket in both fists.
‘The light,’ he whispered. ‘For God’s sake, someone douse the bloody light.’
Chapter Five
‘Cap’n’ll be in a foul mood today.’
He struggled to make sense of the words penetrating the thick, swirling, grey fog.
‘Always is,’ replied the piping tones of a boy. ‘After one of they headaches.’
Who? The question bounced sluggishly in the miasma of his brain. Panic closed his throat as he stared into the surrounding heavy blackness. Who was he?
He jerked to a sitting position at the sound of a crash followed by the tinkle of shattering glass.
‘Careful, lad. The Cap’n’ll have your hide.’
Memories flooded in. His name was Michael. The all-too-familiar yawning pit of despair receded. He was Lionhawk. He owned this ship and he knew his name, his parents’ names, his grim reality.
Michael sank back on to the mattress, safe in the dark tent of blankets put up by Simpson before he collapsed. Relief washed through him. A headache had laid him low. The momentary blank when he first awoke scared him worse than any nightmare. The rush of blessed memory, every last hellish one of them, dawned like manna from heaven.
The first episode for months. It had struck him hard. And he’d thought he was free of them. He hauled air into his lungs, gathering momentum for the task of getting up. No mean feat after a night of agony.
‘Did you see the look on his face when he ordered her back to the hold?’ Simpson’s voice.
‘Naw.’ Jacko, his cabin boy. ‘I only heard him roar at her.’
Her? Michael frowned and winced at the sensation of tight skin stretching over his scalp.
‘I’m surprised he wanted that ’un,’ Jacko said. ‘T’other ’un’s much purtier. Like a china doll I saw once at the market in Freeport, black curly hair and pretty pink cheeks.
Simpson grunted. ‘You’re too young to know, me lad. That ’un’s done naught but complain. She can’t hold a candle to the Fulton wench.’
Bloody hell. Alice Fulton and her brother. The pieces of the puzzle fell together in splashes of colour and light. He’d captured Fulton’s ship and all who sailed in her and celebrated with too much red wine.
It put paid to his planned seduction, but he had learned a great deal more about his enemy.
In the cold light of day another truth lay before him as obvious as a steaming dollop of horse dung in the middle of a fancy soirée. Fulton Shipping had hit rough water.
Laughter balled in his chest. Served the bastard right. But just how badly off was he? Some men complained if they lost so much as a farthing.
The sounds of a scuffle broke out as Jacko and Simpson fought for the privilege of serving him. The wily boy won and pushed his ugly wharf-rat face between the edges of Michael’s makeshift cavern, grinning from one misshapen ear to the other.
‘Here ye are, Cap’n. Coffee. Will ye be wanting your breakfast?’
‘On my desk. And be quick about it.’ The cheeky grin didn’t falter, but the boy dashed off, leaving Simpson to pull down the blankets.
Michael covered his eyes with one hand and suppressed a groan.
‘Might do that lad some good to feel the flat of your hand on his backside once in a while,’ Simpson grumbled.
‘Not on my ship. I’ll turn off anyone who does.’ He pressed his fingers to his temples.
‘Ain’t seen you this poorly since we got into the fight with the press gang from the Dreadnought,’ Simpson commented. ‘The water for your bath is on the way. Shall I call the sawbones or do you want a hair of the dog?’
The doctor could do nothing and the thought of alcohol made Michael’s stomach roll. ‘Coffee is all I need.’
‘Cap’n?’
‘Yes.’
‘Er…’
‘What, man? Spit it out.’
‘That there Fulton lass. She told Wishart you gave orders for her and the rest of them to promenade on the deck today. Health reasons.’
Michael’s mouth fell open. ‘Promenade?’
Simpson rummaged through a chest for Michael’s clothes. ‘Sort of take a walk, like.’
