Читать книгу Seduced by the Scoundrel - Louise Allen - Страница 12

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?’