Читать книгу The Pleasure of His Bed - Donna Grant - Страница 9

Damon bounded down the stairs toward his quarters and a much needed drink. Hours behind schedule they were, all because that feisty abigail’s absence had thrown the household into turmoil. Another suitable chaperone had been found—and then Daphne and Beatrix had clung to their mother as if certain death awaited them aboard the Lady Constance. Such weeping, wailing, and carrying on like he’d never seen!

But when he’d suggested to Lady Havisham that they must be sailing while the tide was in their favor, her glare would’ve felled a lesser man—as if he had arranged her daughters’ marriages in faraway America. As if he were separating her from her two oldest girls and had the audacity to keep a schedule they’d set weeks ago.

Women! He was happy to leave Lady Havisham and her last-minute instructions behind, bound for the open sea. With the nobleman’s ship sailing between his Courtesan and O’Roark’s Odalisque at last, some semblance of order had returned.

He twisted his doorknob and then banged into the door. “What the—? Why in God’s name is—?”

He turned the knob again—shoved the door with his shoulder—but nothing moved! He never locked his quarters! Hired only trustworthy sailors, so he had no need to carry a key.

Damon stood at his door dumbfounded, growing angrier by the second. The only thing aboard the Courtesan he ever locked was the strong box in which they kept the valuables after plundering a prize—and this only to prevent accusations of petty thievery from running amok, come time to divvy up the spoils.

Scowling, he peered through the keyhole. Nothing amiss in his main room, far as he could see…so he’d have to tell Jonas Comstock his door needed unlocking. Jonas had cooked aboard the Courtesan since she’d been built: if any man knew the whereabouts of important keys, it was the gimpy old salt who ran the galley and kept the rum kegs locked up.

Muttering, Delacroix took the stairs two at a time. His mood didn’t improve when Comstock quizzed him about where the deuce he’d put his own key and why the hell his door would be locked anyway. They then resurrected the damn key from a drawer of odd cooking utensils, wasting yet another half hour in the process.

When he returned to his quarters, his door stood ajar.

Damon kicked the damn thing and entered. Stood in the center of his main room, looking for reasons this whole damn day had gone wrong.

“What the hell’s happening here?” he demanded aloud.

He couldn’t find a thing out of place. His navigational instruments lay on his square table where he’d left them. His two baroque chairs sat on the Ottoman rug facing the matching settee—ornately carved pieces his sailors teased him about, but it gave the place a homier feel. This was his home, after all, and because he’d selected every book and tankard and tapestry himself, he thrummed with the sense that all was not right.

“I’m drawing my sword, dammit!” he warned, looking toward the half wall that separated his bed from the main room. “You’ve no place to hide, so you might as well—”

“I’ve seen your sword, captain, and you don’t scare me one bit! Bring it on!”

Damon’s jaw dropped. What was a woman doing in his bedroom? Aboard his ship? Where had he heard her voice?

And why was his cock already high and hard?

“You!” He gripped the edge of the low wall to keep from rushing at her in his frustration. “Haven’t you caused enough trouble for one day by disappearing from your post?”

The raven-haired maid from last night lay naked against his headboard, swaddled amongst his pillows and sheets like a cat settled in for a nap—as if she belonged there! “Come, come, now, captain,” she crooned, slyly raising her arms to rest her head on them. “Is there such a thing as ‘enough trouble’? You didn’t seem to think so last night.”

“You brought it on! Claiming to deliver my dessert—”

“Which you gobbled shamelessly!”

“—when you intended all along to get into my pants—”

“So you got into mine! And you loved every moment!”

Damon blinked. “You weren’t wearing any.”

“At last! A rational thought from a man who finds me distractingly attractive.” She flashed him an adorable grin while thrusting her bare breasts at him. “You can’t tell me you’re not happy to see me, Captain Delacroix. A man will say all manner of misleading things, but his cock never lies!”

“You can’t stay here,” he challenged in an ominous voice. “We don’t allow women on our ship. It’s bad luck.”

Damned if she didn’t sneer at him—and then she threw something! Hit him in the chest with it!

“What do I care about your silly superstitions?” she demanded. “You treated me like a slut last night—pressing money on me, no less! I’ve come to demand restitution.”

He bit back his retort. Studied the lush woman with the raven hair cascading over her shoulders…spilling over his pillows in invitation. “And just what does that mean, restitution?”

“Aha! So you weren’t paying attention in class, either!” Sofia crowed. “I know plenty of things that got past Daphne and Trix during their time with the tutors.”

Damon shifted, aware of the light in her dark violet eyes and the flush on her pretty cheeks—and his body’s reaction to them. This alluring domestic had no inkling of her place, which meant this conversation could continue down the primrose path for a long, long time. What man really wanted intelligent conversation from a fine, feisty female displaying herself so brazenly in his bed? Especially one who’d locked his own damn door on him?

He had half a mind to spank her. The thought of his hand landing a satisfying smack on her curvaceous backside made him shift his weight again. She was distractingly attractive, dammit, and she knew her power well.

“I apologize for my clumsy show of appreciation,” he murmured. “Even as I gave you those coins, I realized such payment might offend you.”

She pursed her lips in a pouty little moue, which made her extremely kissable. “Apology accepted—if you don’t commit any further faux pas.”

“You still can’t stay, Sofia. I must follow the code of conduct my men have agreed to uphold,” he insisted. Although, as she stretched, teasing him with her womanly attributes, a list of male rules was the furthest thing from his mind. “The Code states that any sailor who seduces a woman and brings her aboard shall suffer death.”

Sofia’s gaze didn’t waver. She sprawled proudly, with her lovely shoulders back, contemplating his edict. “But that doesn’t apply here, does it, captain? You own the Courtesan! And we’ve agreed that it was I who seduced you.”

How could he could he not like this woman? God love her, she was even more alluring by day than she’d looked in the twilight shadow of the hedgerow. “I doubt my men will make that distinction,” he said, swallowing a snicker. “Even if I’m their captain—of a ship we plundered awhile back—it’s unfair for me to have a lady at my disposal if they don’t get the same—”

“Thank you, sir. Not many address me as a lady.”

Damon stopped midsentence. Why should he care if she’d been treated poorly? She was a domestic—a servant who’d shirked her duties by running off and who’d cost him precious time this morning! “Stop leading this conversation astray! I’m telling you any man who has a woman aboard is to die. ‘Restitution’ of his life and rights is not an option!”

“So if the man dies…what happens to the woman?”

He gaped. Her distinctive eyebrow arched as she awaited his reply…studied him with unwavering attention…expected an answer at least as astute as her question. Damn! He didn’t have an answer, but he had no doubts about the propositions this wench would receive before she was removed from the Courtesan. Just thinking about his men lusting after her made him seethe!

It was time to take charge by approaching her from another angle. “Why did you run off, obviously plotting to stow away on my ship?” he demanded. “Few serving girls are fortunate enough to sail to America with their—”

“Would you stay with Daphne Havisham?” she cried. “My God, the puking and bawling when Lady Constance tiptoed around the subject of ‘wifely duties’ and fucking! No, thank you!” Sofia declared, her cheeks flaring. “I’ll take my chances at whatever punishment you serve up, sir!”

Damon clenched his jaw to keep from laughing, as it would give her more advantage than she already had. Any moment now one of his men might come looking for him, and the sound of a female voice…or of his bed creaking in that unmistakable rhythm of…

Damn! He had to keep his mind on discipline! He was the captain here! “What punishment would you suggest, Sofia?” he asked slyly. “If you were one of my crew caught at wrongdoing, I’d clap you in irons on the deck, at the mercy of the wind and rain. Or I’d sic the cat on your back. What a pity, the scars our cat-o’-nine-tails would inflict on your lovely skin. And then there’s keelhauling.”

“And what might that be?” she asked in a more subdued voice.

“Your wrists would be bound, and you’d be tossed over the stern on a rope to be dragged from one side of the ship to the other…until you stopped struggling for air. You’d most likely be rubbed to a bloody pulp by the barnacles on the the ship’s underside.”

Her expression tightened. Then her gaze drifted to his waist. “It takes a resourceful man to acquire two ships and crews—and to be hired as an escort for Lord Havisham’s daughters,” she stated coyly. “You’ll come up with something, captain.”

Damned if she didn’t burrow into his bed as though to claim it for herself. Damon strode toward the long lump under his bedclothes, ready to yank back the coverlet and haul her out of—

But that’s exactly what she wanted, wasn’t it? He’d fall prey to her charms the moment his skin touched hers…from the first brush of her lips against his ear as she whispered provocative suggestions.

Delacroix paused at the side of the bed to compose himself. Every word he said would be an invitation for Sofia to sidetrack him, to lure him into joining her between his clean sheets, which would smell like her perfume long after he sent her away.

“Sofia, if you won’t willingly return to the Lady Constance I must bind your wrists and ankles and deliver you there myself. You have no choice.”

No response. Just the slightest shift where her backside would be.

“Fine. I’m fetching the irons,” he warned. “You leave me no recourse.”

She uncovered her face to smile slyly. “You don’t want me telling the Havisham girls they’re only so much ‘ballast’ among the goods you intend to trade along the way,” she informed him. “Just as you don’t want me telling Lord Havisham’s crew you plan to meet up with Blackbeard himself! To barter the dowries in exchange for keeping the brides alive, I’m guessing. You’ll split the profits with him later. Won’t you?”

Damon bit back a sigh. “Your imagination is every bit as keen as your tongue, eh? I’m tired of arguing for—”

“Ah, but what will you have to barter if Daphne and Beatrix order their ship turned around?” Sofia sat up, and when the coverlet fell past her mussed hair Delacroix again caught sight of her smooth, bare shoulders and breasts. What in God’s name was he to do with this brazen woman? She knew too much and had no qualms about telling Havisham’s crew of his intentions. If they turned around, he and O’Roark and their men would forfeit several weeks’ wages—and he wanted no part of a mutiny. Didn’t want to hire new men after these sailors walked out on him, either, dammit.

Control. He must take control…even if his cock so badly wanted to take something else.

He opened the large trunk at the foot of the bed. It grieved him to think of clapping irons around this delectable morsel and then parading her in front of his men, but she gave him no alternative.

“Captain Delacroix…Damon, if I may,” she said in a tempting sing-song, “who will be the wiser if I simply remain here, in your quarters? I promise you, sir, I didn’t stow away to make a nuisance of myself or to cause trouble among your men—”

Damon snorted in disbelief.

“—but once you reveal my presence, you must contend with their curiosity…their insistence on following the Code. Do you really want to die for having me aboard your ship, captain? I could be…your sweet little secret. For the entire trip to America.”

Oh, she tempted him! For a brief and shining moment he envisioned the fantasy she’d spun with her alluring words….

But a knock at the door brought reality crashing home. “Captain, sir, we need your opinion about our navigational bearings as we leave the harbor for the open—” His quartermaster, Quentin Thomas, scowled from the doorway. “Irons already, sir? I’ve never known you to constrain a sailor before the rum kegs were tapped.”

What could he say? Damon glanced at the iron cuffs that dangled from his hand and knew he could keep no secrets, no matter how badly he wanted this woman all to himself. “The abigail who was to accompany Lord Havisham’s daughters has stowed away in my quarters, Thomas,” he confessed. “She refuses to return to her post—”

“Can’t blame her, from what I’ve seen of the girls.” He stifled a laugh as he glanced at the captain’s bulging breeches.

“So I must confine her until we reach port, where I will sell her as a slave to the highest bidder,” he continued in a loud, purposeful tone. “She will earn her meals by doing whatever Comstock demands in the galley. Tell the men I’ll be on deck shortly with the stowaway in tow.”

Quentin’s expression held a hint of conspiracy. “Begging your pardon, captain, but if none of the men are the wiser…” Thomas’s eyes widened, but he quickly refocused on Delacroix. “I—You could trust me to keep your secret, sir. You’ll have nothing but trouble if you let this cat out of the bag.”

Damon turned, exasperated. Why was he not surprised to see Sofia standing at his partition, wrapped in only a sheet? She’d followed their conversation with wide, dark eyes.

“After all the joy I’ve brought you, Captain Delacroix, how can you sell me, sir?” she spouted. “And why are you telling this man such a tale when you told me we’d play a little…slave game when you return from your duties on deck?”

Quentin snickered. “I’ll set our usual course south and west, sir, until you have time to render your final decision on this most pressing matter.”

“No! By God, I am the captain, and I have spoken!” Scowling at Sofia, he stalked out of his quarters behind Quentin Thomas. His mind was made up. He would have no more of her impertinence.

Never mind that he slammed the door on Sofia’s laughter.