Well, damn him, anyway.
Who did he think he was? Just who did he think he was, ordering her about as if she were his bosun?
Payton, scouring the galley floor the next morning, was almost glad the explosion she’d triggered had sent hardtack crusting nearly every surface in the forecastle. She needed something to do to keep her mind off Drake.
Not that it was working. As she scrubbed, she couldn’t help going over and over yesterday’s alarming events.
Did he think it had been easy for her, any of it? It hadn’t. Especially convincing Clarence to let her start bringing the prisoner his meals. She badgered him quite literally for weeks. In the end, it had not been any effort on Payton’s part that changed the cook’s mind, but the simple fact that, the Rebecca having taken on the crew of the Mary B when the Virago’s cannons destroyed the ship, food was in such short supply that Clarence no longer dared leave the galley, for fear of every edible morsel within it being stolen. Payton now had to deliver the captain’s meals under armed escort, while the rest of the crew stared, licking their lips, at the platters she held.
Of the three of them—Drake, Becky Whitby, and Payton—Payton considered her lot the hardest. After all, Drake was nice and snug, locked in a little room all by himself. Becky
Whitby was living in luxurious comfort in the after house, as Payton had seen with her own eyes the very first morning she’d delivered the captain his breakfast.
No, it was Payton who was the most unfortunate of the three of them, Payton who’d been slaving away since her arrival, peeling potatoes and chopping celery and boiling pig parts.
Was she to be blamed, then, for grasping that tiny share of happiness she’d found in Drake’s lap?
She didn’t understand why he was so upset. It was extremely unlikely she was going to be found out. In fact, up until that afternoon, her sojourn upon the Rebecca had been no different from her stay on any of her brothers’ ships—with the exception of the fact that her duties on board the Rebecca were significantly more manuat—no boxing the compass for her here—and there was no bed reserved for her in the after house. There was no bed for her anywhere, in fact, since the crew of the Mary B was crowded into the Rebecca’s forecastle. Payton had taken to snagging a blanket and stationing herself below, as close as she could get to the room in which Drake was locked. She wasn’t able to speak to him through the thick walls, but it comforted her to know he was there, just a few feet away.
So what was he so worried about? She didn’t know. But then, what did she understand about men? Not a whole hell of a lot, she was realizing.
Why, for instance, would a man be willing to marry a woman he’d thought his dead brother had impregnated? Drake had spoken of duty, but Payton suspected that had Becky Whitby been unattractive, he’d probably have found some other way to satisfy his sense of duty toward his dead brother’s child, other than marrying its mother.
And his jibe that had Payton ever bothered to act like a woman herself, he might not have fallen so easily under Miss Whitby’s charm had hurt more than he would ever know. Why hadn’t he been able to see that the rough-and-tumble ways taught to Payton by her brothers were not her true nature? For
close to twenty years, she had mimicked the behavior she saw all around her, only realizing that behavior was inappropriate for someone of her sex when one of her brothers finally married, and an undeniably feminine influence began to be exerted in Payton’s direction.
Still, that didn’t explain Drake’s behavior, back in his cell. Payton was beginning to think there was no rational explanation for that.
Men. What was wrong with them?
Take that ridiculous promise he’d forced her to make. Good Lord, he couldn’t possibly think she intended to keep that one. Leave the ship, without him? Not bloody likely.
It was all well and good for him to tell her to abandon ship. Maybe if she felt a little less for him, she would. Then again, maybe not. Only a lily-livered coward would leave behind a fellow crew member, and save himself. Was Drake asking her to be a coward? Because she wouldn’t do it. She was a Dixon. She had a name to live up to. She would never leave anyone behind, not the lowliest cabin boy, not the scurviest dog of a swabbie.
Not even Becky Whitby.
Or at least that’s what she’d told herself, before she’d known the true nature of Miss Whitby’s relationship with Captain La Fond. Payton remembered that first morning she’d brought the captain his breakfast, how nervous she’d been about what she’d find behind the door of the after house. She had seen Becky Whitby conveyed there, and she had not seen Becky Whitby come out. Would that door open to reveal the girl’s bloodied corpse?
But when the door had been flung open at her tentative knock, she’d been relieved. No Becky Whitby in sight, and the man who’d stood before her hadn’t looked particularly fearful.
This was the infamous pirate captain Lucien La Fond? she’d thought to herself, at the time. The Frenchman, whose very name, mentioned in Kingston or Havana, made men reach
for their swords? Certainly he looked the part. He was tall enough, she supposed, to intimidate those of average or less stature on his crew. And he was certainly dressed as foppishly as any pirate she’d ever seen, fashion sense being something the mercenaries she’d met had generally seemed to lack. His coat was velvet and a rather shocking shade of turquoise, while his fingers were quite heavily ringed, and the lace on his shirt cuffs so long, they reached almost to his knuckles.
But he was by no means fearsome-looking, as the most famous pirate captain of all, Blackbeard, was rumored to have been. In fact, the Frenchman was rather good-looking, with a full head of black hair, tied back in a ponytail, and a rather dashing black mustache. Just then, however, his facial muscles were tight with worry. He was obviously concerned about something, and kept pacing back and forth in front of a closed door that Payton assumed led to his private sitting room.
She’d wondered what he had done with Becky Whitby. Had he, as she most certainly would have done, thrown the odious Miss Whitby overboard, after having been forced to listen to her weep night after night? Or had she barricaded herself fearfully behind that door? Pirates were a frightful lot, thinking nothing of raping any woman they could get their hands on, but Lucien La Fond looked like the sort who might try, at least, to pass himself off as a gentleman. And his concern for whoever was behind that door appeared quite genuine. When the ship surgeon arrived moments after Payton, the captain accosted him immediately.
“Isn’t there anything you can do to make her more comfortable?” he’d asked, his voice, with only the slightest trace of a French accent, sounding a bit desperate. “What about laudanum?”
“But, sir, think of the babe,” the surgeon had cried.
“Blast the babe!” the captain had exploded. “I can’t stand to see her suffering so!”
The surgeon had shaken his head. “Sir, you cannot mean that. Surely you don’t want me to risk the life of your child
simply because its mother is suffering from a little bout of seasickness—”
“Lucien?” The voice that had come from behind the silk-padded door was weak, but it seemed to have an electrifying effect on the pirate captain. He threw himself upon it at once, and heaved it open.
“Yes, my love?”
Payton had caught a glimpse of the heart-shaped face as it lifted weakly from the arm of a satin-covered couch. “Is that Mr. Jenkins?” that all-too familiar voice had asked.
“Yes, madam.” The surgeon had hurried in after the Frenchman, and then Payton had been unable to see the distressed lady anymore, since her view was blocked by broad, masculine backs.
She hadn’t, however, needed to see the woman again. She’d seen enough by then to know who it was. She knew the voice almost as well as she knew her own. The bright red hair that had been streaming over the arm of the sofa only confirmed it.
Only then had it hit her. She was on board the Rebecca.
Of course.
It had been there all along, staring her in the face, and she hadn’t realized it. Had she always been this stupid, or had it only been since she’d fallen so head over heels in love with Connor Drake?
Becky Whitby, whom she’d seen with Sir Marcus Tyler on the morning of her wedding to Drake, was mistress to the pirate Lucien La Fond, whose nautical attacks on Dixon ships had long been rumored to be funded by their chief competitor, Tyler and Tyler Shipping.
That story Becky had told in the vicar’s study, about Sir Marcus wanting to get his hands on Drake’s map—Payton had put that story down as unmitigated bunk. But what if it were true? Not the part about Becky being an innocent pawn in the whole thing—that she knew was a lie. But the part about Sir Marcus being desperate to get his hands on that map—that part might be true. And it would explain why Drake was still
locked up below, instead of having been sliced into shark bait long ago, which would surely have been the Frenchman’s first inclination.
Dipping her scrub brush into the cold seawater she was using to clean the floor, Payton pressed her lips together determinedly. She was going to get him out of there. She had to. Just as she knew he would never leave her had the situation been reversed, she could never leave him.
And besides, things weren’t all that bad. They’d been in far worse scrapes than this, after all. She couldn’t remember one, but she was almost sure of it. All she had to do, really, was get them off this ship before they reached Nassau. Payton still didn’t know what fate the Frenchman had in store for Drake there, but whatever it was, she knew it wouldn’t be a good one. So it was simple, really. She just had to get him off the ship before they reached New Providence.
Of course, he wasn’t going to like hearing that very much. Drake had always been a very exacting commander, expecting his orders to be carried out to the letter, and offering swift punishment to those who failed to do so—unless they could give him a good reason why his orders had been ignored. He was exacting, but he was just.
Payton thought she had a good reason why she hadn’t carried out his order that she leave the ship. The reason was that, simply, she couldn’t. She just couldn’t leave him. She didn’t suppose he was going to consider that a good reason, but then, what was he going to do about it? Not a whole lot. He was chained to the wall. What could he possibly do to her?
She found out, the very next time she had opportunity to bring the prisoner his supper—this time distracting Tito with a bottle of whisky, stolen from the captain’s liquor cabinet—and enter Drake’s cell.
Night had fallen by the time Payton was finally able to escape the galley and let herself into the hold, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness in Drake’s cell. She hadn’t thought to bring a candte—her hands were too full to carry one anyway, since she was cradling all the food she’d
managed to smuggle out of the forecastle, tucked beneath her shirt—but moonlight spilled through spaces in the wooden planks overhead … enough moonlight for Payton to see that Drake, though he’d obviously noticed her, hadn’t bothered climbing to his feet.
This actually shocked her more than anything she’d seen so far aboard the Rebecca. Back in the days when they’d sailed with her brothers, Drake had always risen when she’d entered a room or come on deck. Her brothers had teased him about it, since Payton, in her bare feet and braids, didn’t exactly resemble the sort of fine lady upon whom gentlemen practiced social niceties. But Drake had always ignored them, continuing to rise whenever Payton appeared.
Until now, apparently. Now he just looked up at her from where he sat, slumped against the far wall, his elbows on his knees. Looked up, saw her, and looked away.
Bloody hell! Here she was, with all sorts of food she’d had to go to no end of trouble to scrounge up—fruit, bread, not to mention a few strips of salt pork that felt quite uncomfortable against her bare belly—and he had the nerve to snub her like that! Not that she cared about the fact that he hadn’t stood. But he could at least acknowledge her presence …
And then it hit her. Maybe he was ill!
Good God! That had to be it! Those bastards. What had they done to him? She’d kill them all.
Hurrying into the cell, Payton fell down to her knees at Drake’s side, pieces of fruit and bread rolls dropping out from beneath her shirt and falling to roll unnoticed across the hardwood floor.
“Drake,” she cried, her naturally husky voice breaking. “Are you all right? What did they do to you?”
He swung his head round to face her, but for once, those glowing silver eyes had no effect on her. She was too busy scanning for wounds to notice how his gaze raked her. Had they beat him? she wondered. Whipped him, perhaps? He certainly didn’t look his best—even in the dim moonlight, Payton could see that his trousers, which had once been fawn-colored,
were now a dingy gray, with twin tears through which his darkly tanned knees jutted. His waistcoat and jacket were long gone—Payton had thought she’d spotted the Frenchman’s first mate wearing them, along with Drake’s gleaming Hessian boots. All he’d been left with were his trousers and a linen shirt that had once been white and whole, but was now gray and ripped down the middle, so that it revealed all of his chest and most of his strongly muscled stomach.
But though he might not have been dressed as usual in the height of fashion, Payton, looking him over, could detect no injuries. He looked, in fact, incredibly well for a man who’d subsisted, for the past month, on little more than mash and water. Even the beard and mustache did nothing to detract from his overall handsomeness, serving only to emphasize the aristocratic planes of his face. Looking at him, Payton couldn’t help but think it sad that Miss Whitby had turned out to be mistress to someone else. The two of them would have made a lovely couple.
Then, when Drake continued to stare at her in utter silence, a horrible thought occurred to Payton. She reached out to grasp him by the shoulders.
“Drake!” she cried. “Did they cut out your tongue?”
The upper lip that just a moment before she’d been admiring, even coated as it was in tawny hair, curled. “No,” he replied, his deep voice so low it was nothing more than a guttural growl. “Of course not. Payton, what are you still doing here? I thought I told you to get off this ship.”
She blinked at him. “You mean … you’re not hurt?”
“Of course I’m not. But you’re going to find your backside smarting something fierce if you don’t get it out of here this minute—”
He made as if to lunge at her, but Payton scrambled away backward on all fours, like a crab. When she’d reached a safe distance, out of reach of his chains, she sat there in stunned silence, watching him with wide eyes.
He was on his feet now, but not out of any sense of gentlemanly duty. No, he was trying to get hold of her, undoubtedly
to make good on his promise to wear out her backside. He was making all sorts of horrible grunting noises as he strained ineffectually to break his chains. Payton, who’d only rarely seen Drake lose his temper—and certainly never because of something she’d done—could only watch, in horrified fascination. She’d seen her brothers lose their tempers before—especially Ross—but she had never seen any of them quite this angry.
She watched him rage for a while. He was cursing fitfully now, oaths that would have burned the ears of any properly brought-up young lady, but which Payton had heard daily and sometimes uttered herself, when provoked. Occasionally she glanced at the door to the brig. She’d closed it behind her, but that didn’t mean that his voice wasn’t going to carry to other parts of the ship. They didn’t have to worry about Tito overhearing them, but there were others on board who didn’t have their lips wrapped around a bottle, and who might get curious.
She decided she had to shut him up—if only so that she could talk some sense into him—but she didn’t have any idea how to do that without going near him, and remembering the way he’d shaken her the day before, she wasn’t about to get anywhere within grabbing distance of those enormous hands. Payton tried to remember what Georgiana had done, the last time Ross had had a similar temper tantrum. She seemed to recall that tears had been involved.
Tears? She was going to have to cry?
Oh, Lord. When were her trials going to end?
Pulling her knees up to her chest, Payton let out what she hoped sounded like a sob, and dropped her face down onto her arms, which she’d folded over her knees. She sat like that, twitching her shoulders a little and making sniffling noises, peeking up occasionally to see if Drake had noticed. He had not. He had hold of one of his chains, and was busy trying to yank it from the iron support to which it was anchored to the wall.
Payton, disgusted, thought she’d better cry a little louder, so she let out a louder sniffle, then quickly dipped her head
down again when Drake finally glanced her way.
“Payton?” He didn’t sound at all concerned, the way Ross always sounded when Georgiana cried. Drake sounded more suspicious than concerned.
Damn it all to hell. Was she going to have to summon up real tears? Payton tried to think about something sad. Her dead mother. No, that wasn’t sad. She’d been only a few hours old when her mother died. She didn’t remember her, had never even known her, not like her brothers, who sometimes sighed and got a faraway look in their eyes whenever Sir Henry mentioned his beloved wife’s name. What else? Mei-Ling leaving her, to go back to her own family. But that wasn’t sad, either. Mei-Ling had been so happy. The Constant? Her family giving away the only thing she’d ever wanted? No, not that, either. It still bothered her, but she had more pressing concerns just at the moment.
Drake. What was the Frenchman going to do to Drake? That was what troubled her, what had been troubling her every moment for weeks now. If anything were to happen to Drake, why …
Tears came, quite suddenly, and most miraculously. Payton was so startled she almost stopped crying in her shock. Then she remembered she was trying to cry, so she let herself go, and let out a really good, gut-wrenching sob. Lord, but it almost felt … well … nice.
A sly peek at Drake—blurry through her tears, but still quite visible—showed that he was staring down at her with a stunned expression on his face. Good. She hid her face back in her arms. Really, this crying thing was quite effective. She ought to have thought of it sooner.
“Payton.” She heard the chains rattle, and then there were twin thumps. Glancing up, she saw that Drake had dropped to his knees. She was still huddled out of his reach, but even from that distance, she could see that he had calmed down, his anger at her forgotten—at least for now—in his concern over her tears.
“Payton, are you all right?” All the suspicion was gone
from Drake’s voice. Instead, she heard only the tenderest concern. “Did something happen, honey? Did somebody hurt you?”
Honey. He’d called her honey. He’d called her that before. And sweetheart once, too. How nice those words sounded on his lips! She let out another sob, but this one was for joy.
“Payton.”
Lord, how the sound of his voice saying her name thrilled her! She’d never noticed before how those two syllables, uttered from those two lips, in that deep, deep voice, could send little chills up and down her spine. It was all she could do not to start laughing through her tears.
And then the extraordinary happened. Something warm and gentle touched her bare ankle.
Payton lifted her head sharply, thinking rats might have invaded the hold. But then she saw that it wasn’t rats at all, but Drake, who’d reached his hand out as far as his shackles would allow—as far as her right foot, wedged into the slightly too-small buckle shoe she’d borrowed so long ago from the Virago’s cabin boy.
Payton blinked down at that hand, so large and dark against the skin of her slim ankle. If that hand—so intimidatingly masculine, with the gold hairs springing so thickly from the deeply tanned skin; so predatory in its size and strength—had belonged to anyone else, she’d have whipped out the knife she’d stolen from the galley and embedded the blade deep into the middle of it.
But it didn’t belong to anyone else. It belonged to Drake.
Lifting her gaze, Payton saw that Drake’s was already boring into her.
A second later, she’d launched herself at him. Though she was slight of figure, the force of her catapulting body was enough to knock him flat onto his back. Before he could react—she was fairly certain he was going to do his best to push her away—Payton straddled him, as she had the day before, and promptly stretched out so that her heart lay over his, their faces just inches apart.
“Can we,” Payton said a little breathlessly, “try that again? What we did yesterday? Only this time, with our pants off?”
Drake’s jaw was set. She saw it, even in the dim moonlight, and knew it boded ill.
“No,” he ground out. “Not here, Payton …”
Doubtless he had some more romantic scheme in mind for her defloration. She was very flattered. Really, she was. But it was far too late. She could already feel him growing hard beneath her.
It may not have been romantic, but it was all they had. All they might ever have.
She lowered her head, and brushed her lips against his. Just once. His arms flung out on either side of them, weighted down by the chains, he remained motionless, staring up at the ceiling, his expression stony. She brushed his lips with her mouth again.
“Payton,” he said warningly. And this time when he spoke, his voice was little more than a growl. She could feel it reverberating, deep within him.
She ignored him. If he really wanted to stop her, she knew, he could have, despite the chains. He was twice her size. Even with his wrists shackled, he could have thrown her off. But he didn’t.
She lowered her mouth to his once more.
And this time, he kissed her back. Kissed her back, and then said, almost savagely, “All right. All right, then. If this is what you want …”
Then he lifted his arms, seized hold of both her shoulders, and pulled her down against him, crushing her mouth to his.