Читать книгу Wicked Loving Lies - Rosemary Rogers, Rosemary Rogers - Страница 15

An obviously disapproving Donald brought dinner, sniffing loudly as he laid the table and setting down steaming covered dishes with an unnecessary clatter that caused his captain to raise an eyebrow and inquire politely if perhaps he was getting too old for life at sea.

Marisa sulked in the farthest corner of the big bed, keeping her back stubbornly turned; but she could not help overhearing the conversation. She could almost imagine Donald’s long face, and the way his lips must be pursed. Well, at least Donald was on her side, and as soon as they reached France she’d beg him to help her….

“And why would ye be wanting both wine and champagne?” Donald was asking in a gruff voice. “I can’t recall as ye’ve ever displayed much liking for the vile, wicked stuff before. All bubbles, it is, and only meant for—”

He cast a pitying glance towards Marisa who was smothered under the bedcovers, and he was angry enough to glower at the captain. He had no right to treat a young, unprotected child as if she were some dockside trollop picked up for his pleasure!

Dominic Challenger, reading what was in the older man’s mind, gave him a sarcastic smile. “Why should I need to seduce her when both you and she keep reminding me that she’s ruined already? And I happen to have a taste for champagne tonight—and none at all for your preaching, you old reprobate!”

Donald opened his mouth to speak again and found his speech cut off by a steely, threatening look. He left without speaking again.

Suddenly a spicy aromatic scent filled the cabin, making Marisa’s mouth water in spite of all her resolutions. Dominic had taken the covers off the silver dishes that Donald had brought in, and the delicious smell was almost too much for her to bear! Marisa bit her lip, her back stiffening, and the next moment she jumped as a cork popped loudly.

‘So that’s his game. I’m supposed to crawl and beg for my food now…. Well, we’ll see!’

The odor of seafood and spices and saffron-flavored rice took her suddenly back to Martinique. Oh, why hadn’t maman left her behind on that warm, happy island with her grandparents instead of dragging her off to France?

She was so hungry that even his presence could not stop the involuntary growling of her empty stomach, and Marisa blushed with shame.

“If you’re not hungry, petite, perhaps a glass of champagne will help you cheer up. We’ll soon be in France, and you might want to celebrate the parting of our ways!”

Lately he had taken to speaking to her in French; and as usual, his sarcastic tone of voice made her grit her teeth with anger. If she didn’t eat he was just as likely to have the meal cleared away as soon as his own appetite was satisfied.

Wrapping a sheet loosely around her, she finally sat down opposite him. Captain Challenger’s shirt was open to his waist, and she could not help noticing, all over again, the strangely wrought medal he wore on a silver chain around his neck. She had asked him about it before, and he’d only shrugged, telling her it was a good-luck charm given him by an old friend.

“It looks like a heathen thing to me!” she’d said primly and saw his lip curl ironically.

“You would appear the heathen to the man who gave me this, little wildcat. Stop acting so curious.”

Well, she would not ask him any more questions. She knew all she wanted to know about him, although his behavior tonight puzzled her. He had made Donald lay the table as if for a formal dinner party; and now he instructed her on the correct implements to use, all the while keeping her glass full to the brim with champagne.

“You might as well learn to eat like a lady instead of a hungry savage! Do you want this aunt of yours to feel ashamed of you? Or your lovers—”

“I would not take any lovers! Now that you’ve taught me what men really want from a woman I think I would much rather be a nun, after all!”

“Just think what you would have missed—immured in a Spanish convent!”

His eyes crinkled at the corners—why did she have to notice that? And when she would have answered him loftily, Marisa choked on her champagne instead. She spluttered, breathing up bubbles of champagne that seemed to penetrate her very brain, making it float away from her body.

“I think it’s time for your next lesson, ma fille.”

The sheet she had wrapped herself with had somehow vanished, and she was lying backward on the bed, her head spinning alarmingly.

“Since you are so determined to become a nun, you had better learn the ways in which men can take advantage of you.”

Had she dreamed the husky whisper? Marisa gasped with shock as something cold and wet trickled over her breasts and down her belly. Her body jerked, arching involuntarily, and her eyes, as she tried to focus them, held a puzzled, confused look.

“You are pouring champagne all over me! Are you mad? Stop—”

Marisa began to giggle helplessly the next moment when Dominic, bending his dark head to hers, said severely,

“Will you hold still, vixen? It would be a shame to waste all that champagne.”

Neither of them had eaten very much, being far too occupied in arguing, and she thought for a moment that he was as drunk as she. She became aware, all of a sudden, of a strange sensation. His lips and tongue were tracing the path of the champagne, and going even further, in fact…

Marisa tried to wriggle away, but he held her pinioned, concentrating first on one quivering breast and then the other until she felt her whole body burning with embarrassment. And—and—oh, it was the strangest feeling, but although she struggled and moaned, she did not really want him to stop, not even when her nipples were achingly sensitive under his hands, and his seeking mouth moved much lower—across her taut, shrinking belly—lower still, until—

Until frightened both of herself and him, she began to fight against him in earnest, her breath sobbing in her throat, limbs writhing as she fought to close her thighs against this different kind of encroachment.

Forgetting her pride in her fear, Marisa began to plead with him, although somewhere in the back of her mind a small demon sat grinning and damned her for being a hypocrite. She had come closer than she ever had before to understanding desire—so close that when with a muttered expletive he slid himself up her body and kissed her mouth instead, she was almost sorry. She felt as if she had been on the brink of some strange and new experience, and now she had lost it.

Still, when he parted her thighs with his hands she made none of her usual protest, but let him, quivering again only very slightly when his fingers touched her. There, where his lips had brushed only moments ago.

“My poor jeune fille. Is the thought of seduction so frightening to you that you have to fight me tooth and nail?”

She realized then that she had actually clawed at his shoulders. When he leaned over her, penetrating her quickly and deeply, she tasted his blood against her lips and wondered in the back of her mind what had made him so patient with her tonight. Any other man she might have called kind, but she had learned that Dominic Challenger wasn’t. He was a man who took what he wanted, and women were a convenience, no more—she remembered that he had snarled that at her one night.

She would never understand him, why even try. It was the champagne that made this time different from all those others and made her head whirl and her breasts ache against his chest where the funny foreign medal he wore pressed into her flesh, warm from his body, like a brand.

He held her against him all night, his flesh still part of hers. And he took her again in the morning when she was still half-asleep, quickly and impatiently this time, without a kiss or a caress. But at least he pulled the covers back over her when he left; and turning over with a sigh, Marisa slept again.

When she woke it was well past noon. Donald, his eyes carefully averted, brought her a tray and informed her that they were approaching the coast of France. They should be safely berthed in the harbor of Nantes by nightfall.

When he had gone, Marisa jumped quickly out of bed, grimacing slightly at the bad taste the champagne had left in her mouth. She could see nothing out of the porthole, for the captain’s cabin was at deck level and not high enough for her to catch a glimpse of anything but the same blue, heaving ocean. Turning back with a sigh of disappointment, she discovered her “clothes”—the same patched-up garments she had worn during her short masquerade as a cabin boy. They were folded and lying neatly on a small chest at the foot of the bed.

A tacit reminder that the captain now desired her dressed for a change? Biting her lower lip, Marisa stared at the dirty-white shirt and breeches with distaste. During the time she had spent at sea, she had managed, somehow, to detach herself from reality. A ship was a world within itself, and since he had elected to keep her for his use, she had not come in contact with a single other human except Donald. She found herself wondering now if the rest of the crew even knew of her existence. The ambiguity of the situation she was placed in suddenly struck her with the force of a blow, and she flinched, snatching up the garments she had despised a moment ago.

France! But they were still quite some distance from Paris. What did he intend to do with her once they had disembarked? Surely he would allow her off the ship; he had said that women were considered bad luck. And if he did, then what?

She was given no chance to ask any questions. Some time much later in the afternoon Dominic came striding into the cabin, giving her only a cursory glance, and collected a sheaf of papers off his desk before leaving again. She heard voices, running feet on the deck, the shrill whistle of the boatswain’s pipe, and the creaking of timbers. Mr. Benson’s voice shouted orders that were unintelligible, and she guessed they were hauling down sail, for the normally swift passage of the ship seemed to have slowed so that now she could actually hear the lapping of water against her sides instead of the hiss as the sharp prow cut through the waves. It was intolerable that she should have to stay cooped up here, and especially now; but she dared not show herself on deck, either.

The rough cotton garments, washed in sea water with strong soap, chafed her skin, especially at the neck and waist. For a time Marisa paced angrily about the cabin, and then, flinging herself into a chair, she picked up the shabby, leather-bound volume of Shakespeare’s plays that had so fascinated her before. As she turned the pages, trying to find the place where she had stopped, Marisa wondered how it was that the bad-tempered Captain Challenger should come to have such a book in his possession. She could not imagine him taking the time to sit down and read, and yet it appeared well-worn, like a book of poetry by someone called Donne that she had also discovered on his desk.

Suddenly she found herself staring down at the frontispiece—why hadn’t she noticed it before? There was a scrawled Latin inscription, Inopem me copia fecit, ‘Plenty makes me poor’—not his writing, surely? The hand was feminine, the ink faded. And below it, simply a name. ‘Peggy.’ Who was Peggy? What had she been to him?

It was the first question she asked him when he finally returned to the cabin, once the ship was safely at anchor.

He looked tired and irritable and didn’t bother to speak one word to her; he merely sat on the end of the bed to take off his boots.

“Who is Peggy? Your wife?” Until the words slipped out she had not considered the possibility that he might, indeed, have a wife tucked away somewhere. She didn’t know why the thought should disturb her—except that it made her own position so much the worse. His mistress!

Still occupied in tugging off his wet boots he looked up uncomprehendingly at first; then he frowned.

“What?”

“I asked you if your wife’s name is Peggy. Or was she merely one of your mistresses?”

His face whitened, and then a look of such fury came over it that Marisa shrank back against the bulkhead.

“You damned, prying little bitch!” He said it softly, between his teeth. “What in hell do you mean by that? Where did you—”

The book she had been holding dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers, catching his eye.

There was a silence that stretched unendingly, while Marisa stayed flattened against the wall, not daring to look at him. Oh, God. Why had she spoken? He’d looked furious enough to kill her with his bare hands!

And then he said in a surprisingly quiet, controlled voice, “Peggy was my mother. And I have no wife—nor do I intend ever to saddle myself with one. Do you understand?”

At last she managed to raise her eyes to his face, and he gave a harsh, ugly laugh. “Your eyes are as big as saucers. Did I really succeed in frightening you at last?” Before she could find her voice to respond, he stood up and crossed the room with two long strides and caught her shoulders. “Don’t ever ask me questions about myself, menina. You might not like the answers you receive!”

“I—I didn’t mean—” She didn’t mean to stutter either, but she could not help it.

He pulled her against his chest and held her there as if to comfort her for having scared her half out of her wits. “Never mind. It’s not your fault, and I’m a moody devil at the best of times. It’s a good thing for you we’ll soon be going our separate ways.”

Marisa didn’t dare question him again as he swept her up into his arms and carried her over to the bed. Not then, while he undressed her with surprising gentleness and then lay beside her, his hands moving over her trembling, acquiescent body as if he wished to memorize it.

“You haven’t learned passion yet, have you?” he said softly once. “And I’m too damned impatient and selfish to be your instructor, although sometimes, when you lie here like a shivering trapped animal I find myself wondering—”

He was talking more to himself than to her, and she wondered at this different mood and its cause. Perhaps he’d be relieved to be rid of her; she knew she would be relieved to have her body belong to herself again.

Now, recognizing the signs of his desire as he pressed his lips against the vein that throbbed in her neck, Marisa expected him to take her without any further preliminaries. For the last time, perhaps. Tomorrow—hadn’t he talked of their going separate ways? But instead, he cursed softly under his breath and rolled away from her.

With disbelieving eyes she watched him get up and begin to dress.

“Where are you going?” And then she bit her lip. Hadn’t he just warned her not to question him?

He answered her in the old, hard voice she was used to.

“On deck—for some air. I let most of the crew go ashore tonight; they haven’t had the kind of sweet consolation you’ve provided me with for the past weeks, my sweet. It’s time I relieved Mr. Benson and took my turn at watch.” Pulling a heavy coat over his shoulders he turned to look at her with unreadable, slaty eyes. “Go back to sleep. You ought to rest well tonight.”

She raised herself on one elbow, puzzled by his sudden change of mood, and half-afraid too.

“And—and tomorrow?” she faltered, to be answered by his sarcastic, cutting laugh.

“Why, tomorrow I’ll smuggle you ashore, and you’ll be free of me, as you long to be. It won’t take you much time to find another protector—perhaps a kinder and more patient one. Good night, little gypsy!”