Martha had sent her father to bed hours earlier. He tired so quickly these days and the number of dead men that they’d seen tonight had been enough to crush anyone’s spirit.
Between Martha, Mr. Clark, Mr. Joe Cameron—the man who owned and operated their tiny inn, taproom, general store, and post office—and Brian Boyle, who worked a number of jobs in their tiny community, including that of sexton—they were able to distribute the ambulatory prisoners to the villagers who had room to house them. Only one of the injured men—a boy, really—was too injured to walk.
There were seventeen men in need of shelter and Martha kept five. While the meeting hall could have held many more men, five would be plenty to feed and care for. The tiny cottage where she and her father lived was right near the meeting house, so she could conveniently bring food to them.
“You believe most of the crew made it to the mainland?” she asked Mr. Clark once they’d sent the last prisoner off with a crofter and his wife.
“Four lifeboats were seen heading toward Gill’s Bay.”
“Will they make it?”
“I should think so—the water’s calm enough and they’ve plenty of moonlight.”
“Then how is it that the ship’s captain didn’t see the rocks?”
Mr. Clark shrugged, his usually full and smiling lips compressed into a line. The treacherous rocks that flanked Stroma to the east were not a matter for discussion. Martha knew, even though he’d not said it, that the crew had decided to take their chances rowing to the mainland rather than making the far shorter trip to the island. The Stroma islanders had a bad reputation as people who wouldn’t just watch a ship founder, they would help it along and dispatch any survivors who might make it to shore.
Martha tried not to think about that.
Besides, matters had changed greatly in the years since her father had come. While it was true that cargos often went missing, there were far fewer human casualties.
“One of the men I spoke to said the crew were fighting among themselves,” Joe Cameron said.
“Yes, I heard that from several of them myself.” Martha looked at Mr. Clark. “Do you know what might have happened?”
“There was obviously something wrong as the ship was indeed bound for New South Wales.” Mr. Clark shrugged. “It’s anyone’s guess as to what happened since we only have the prisoners’ side of the story.”
“It’s a disgrace that the crew left the prisoners trapped below,” Joe said, echoing Martha’s thoughts exactly.
Mr. Clark looked considerably less outraged, and Martha experienced an unhappy pang at his unchristian response.
Brian Boyle eyed the door to the meeting hall. “I can’t feel good about leaving you up here with those five men, Martha—no matter how pitiful they’re looking right now,”
“Aye,” Mr. Clark agreed. “Especially that one. He’s a bad ’un.”
The other men nodded, knowing exactly which one he meant, although nobody had yet managed to get his name.
“He is more bark than bite,” Martha assured them. “And all five of them could hardly lift their arms to feed themselves they were so exhausted. They won’t be causing trouble tonight.”
The men hemmed and hawed but finally moved off toward their various dwellings.
Mr. Clark was last to leave. “Are you sure about this, Miss Martha? I could bunk up along with them in the meeting hall?”
Mr. Clark had an aged mother and a widowed sister with two children to care for. He left before light most days to fish, so keeping him here would only make his life that much harder.
“That is a kind offer, but I shall manage. Good night, Mr. Clark.”
“And good night to you, Miss Mar—”
“Great bleeding bollocking hell! What the devil is that?”
Martha grimaced. “Oh dear. It sounds as if Small Cailean might have left Lily behind. I’d best be off.”
Mr. Clark frowned, but nodded and headed down the path toward his cottage.
Martha knocked sharply on the meeting hall door. “I wish to come in, are you—” She hesitated, trying to think of the least embarrassing way to ask if he had covered himself. Seeing so much of his body earlier had been an unprecedented experience, one she would not be forgetting soon.
She’d seen men without shirts, of course, but never had she seen a body like his. Even the men on the island, who were well-muscled from days of grueling work, could not compare. He was as hard as stone, defined and distinct as if someone had created him with a sculptor’s chisel. His pale skin was almost completely smooth but for a fine trail of dark hair that grew down the center of his body, between the stunningly delineated muscles of his abdomen, disappearing into the—
The door flew open and Martha squeaked in surprise.
It was the troublemaker, of course.
Small Cailean must have made him a crutch because he was standing beside the door, shrouded in blankets, his face tight with pain, and his dark eyes wide with something that looked like fear.
“It’s over there.” He pointed to the far corner of the dimly lit room. “Some manner of beast that slithered onto the bench and tried to come at me beneath my blankets. It tried to bite my co—”
Martha cleared her throat.
He stopped abruptly.
“You needn’t work yourself into a lather—that is only Lily.”
He eyed her apprehensively. “What is a Lily?”
“Lily is an otter. Small Cailean’s otter, to be precise. He must have left her to comfort you. He likes you a great deal, it appears.”
“Why the bl—” His jaw snapped shut at whatever he saw on her face. “Never mind.” He turned and stumped back to the bench he’d claimed for himself. He’d taken two blankets and wrapped them in creative ways to cover up most of his body. The other four men, she saw, were in various stages of sleep. Two were snoring and two others were looking as if they’d like to.
Unlike her obstreperous, otter-fearing guest, the other men had clothing, albeit tattered and grimy.
Martha could not understand why nobody had thought to bring the man at least a nightshirt, but it was too late to ask for such a thing now and her father’s clothing would be far too small for such a muscular, broad-shouldered man.
She went to where Lily must have hidden after being yelled at. “Come here, little girl,” she cooed, making the kissing sound Small Cailean used to call the young otter.
Lily came out grudgingly, her dark eyes full of reproach as she scampered into Martha’s outstretched hands.
“There’s a good girl,” Martha praised, holding her just like you would hold a baby. Which is what Lily was, a spoiled little baby.
Martha walked back to the foul-mouthed convict. “See,” she said, stopping in front of him. “Lily is just a sweet little girl.” She scratched the otter under her chin and Lily’s eyes closed and she made a soft rattling sound in her throat.
The man shuddered. “It’s a rat. The most enormous, filthy rat I’ve ever seen.”
“Shame on you,” Martha said, only partly jesting. “Lily is a sea otter. And she’s very clean and well-mannered, aren’t you, Lily?”
“Ha! She tried to sneak beneath my blankets—you call that manners?”
“Otter manners.”
To Martha’s surprise, he laughed. As it did for most people, laughter transformed him. He still looked like a wicked satyr, but he looked like a younger, less intimidating wicked satyr.
“What is your name?” Martha asked before she could stop herself.
He regarded her from beneath heavy eyelids that were fringed with long and lush feminine eyelashes. Martha swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable as she recalled her glimpse of his distinctly unfeminine body.
“What would you like my name to be, darling?” His voice was like velvet and even Lily perked up at the sound.
Martha’s face heated, which only angered her more. “I am not your darling.”
He gave her another of his crooked smiles. “Hugo.”
“I hardly wish to call you by your Christian name.”
“My surname is Higgenbotham.”
Martha frowned at the unusual name. “Your name is Hugo Higgenbotham,” she repeated, feeling rather silly as her mouth struggled with the tongue-twisting syllables.
He gave a chuckle that made her belly clench. “No. I just wanted to see what those gorgeous lips of yours looked like when you said the word Higgenbotham.”
Martha’s jaw sagged. Lily, sensing her sudden change in mood, sat up and chittered nervously.
Hugo Whatever His Name Really Was merely chuckled. “Careful, your rat is getting excited.”
Martha was seized by such powerful emotions—anger, shock, and something else, something less familiar—that she was shaking. “I find it hard to believe that you are mocking me after I have done everything I can to help you.”
“Not everything, sweetheart.” He scooted until he was against the back of the bench and patted the smidgeon of space in front of his hips. “You could toss that rat outside and crawl under these blankets and keep me warm.”
To say she’d never been so shocked in her life would have been an understatement. She was so shocked she needed a whole new word for it.
But that wasn’t what bothered her.
No, what bothered Martha was how tempted she was to do exactly what he suggested.
Hugo knew he was acting like an arse but he couldn’t stop himself. He wouldn’t even know how; he couldn’t recall a time when he’d not behaved like an arse.
Now might be a good time to embrace a change, a cool voice in his head recommended as Hugo watched the woman—Miss Martha Pringle—turn on the heel of her sturdy brown boot and march back the way she’d come, snuffing out the only source of light, a candle that gave off more smoke than illumination, on her way out the door, leaving only the moon to light up darkness.
Hugo considered calling after her—not apologizing, exactly, but perhaps charming her out of her mood. It had always worked well for him with women in the past, but then he’d not been lying wrapped in a scratchy blanket, beaten like a piece of flotsam, and without so much as a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of before.
He was too bloody tired and achy to beg or charm. He’d beg and charm tomorrow.
He grunted and lay back on his hard bed.
Hugo told himself that he should be grateful he wasn’t still covered in puke, chained to other men, and trapped with a maniac in the hold of a prison ship.
He chewed his lower lip, which had become painfully chapped from being deprived of water for days. Well, other than salt water.
Thanks to the burning planks over their heads, the scene in the hold when the boat hit the rocks had been a Boschian vision of Hell. Water rushed into the damaged hull, dousing flames, while men screamed and fought against both fire and the freezing darkness of the ocean, crawling on top of each other to beat against the hatches, drowning those beneath them.
Right about the time they broke the hatch doors open the ship began to move—an unimpeded drift—and Hugo had realized the vessel was sinking.
Those men who were not able to make their way out scrambled to keep to the part of the hold that held a pocket of air, clinging to the ship’s ribs like wet rats.
Hugo followed the flicker of feet, the bare soles ahead of him like the pale bellies of fish, disappearing through the jagged hole
“It’s sinking,” he’d yelled as he stroked through the water toward the crack.
“I can’t swim,” one of the men screamed.
You’d better give it a shot, Hugo thought as he’d sucked in all the air he could hold and plunged into the blackness.
His lungs were on the point of exploding when he finally broke the surface. The sea wasn’t rough, but the rocks caused strange and powerful currents that pulled at his legs like freezing claws. Cries had filled the darkness as others who were less fortunate either gave up looking for land or struck the jagged rocks lurking below the water.
The moon was almost full, which made him wonder—even in his battered, water-logged state—how the devil the captain had managed to hit the rocks?
Or perhaps he’d died in the fire? Or abandoned his ship?
Even bobbing in the water, Hugo had been able to see a goodly distance ahead, so he struck out for what looked to be shoreline. But he’d only taken a few strokes when his leg slammed into a submerged rock. As he’d clung to the same rock that cut him, waiting to die in the freezing water, he’d stared at the ship. Through his haze of pain, it had looked like there were men fighting on the flaming, wildly tilted deck of the ship.
Hugo thought about that now as he wrapped his blankets tighter around his cold body. He must have imagined it because that would have been madness, wouldn’t it?
He pushed the unpleasant thought aside and yawned, his lips twitching into a tired smile as he thought about Miss Martha Pringle with her sensual mouth, rebuking gaze, and curvy sinner’s body. He couldn’t recall meeting another woman quite like her.
Hugo suffered an uncharacteristic pang of remorse as he recalled the way he’d treated her. She’d been kind to him and he’d been a rude, vulgar arse. Tomorrow he would do better.
He yawned again, unable to keep his eyes open a minute longer.
That night, instead of having nightmares about burning ships and bloody killers, he dreamed of liquid blue eyes and full, smiling lips.