Chapter Six
“Enough.”
Through the gurgling cataract of seawater washing over her, Adriana heard the captain’s shout. The flow suddenly ebbed and she saw the captain approach, a blur through a curtain of dripping water. He seized a handful of her shirt and dragged her up the stairs despite the frenzied cries of dismay from the crew.
“Enough,” the captain shouted, his grip on her shirt tightening. “You’ve had your fun. Back to your duties!”
She stuttered, “Captain—”
“Shut up.”
He dragged her through the officer’s mess and toward a door at the far end. He pushed it open and hauled her in, slamming it behind him. He turned back to her and, with one hand, ripped her shirt open from neck to waist.
Panic squeezed her. He stared wide-eyed at her exposed breasts, now gleaming with seawater.
She tried to cover herself, but her bindings were a twisted tangle around her waist. The torn edges of her shirt kept slipping through her numb fingers. Her nipples had gone tight in the cold, scraping against her palms as she finally used her hands to cover what she could.
Endless seconds ticked away. She wanted to scream—Stop! Stop looking!—but already it was too late. The captain stood as still as stone, his attention riveted. Her naked breasts became prickly, goose-pimply, under that gaze.
Never in her life had they felt so damn full.
“Damn it,” she blurted, hardly recognizing her own strained voice. “Look away.”
To her surprise, he swiveled on one heel and showed her his broad back. His shirt stretched across that back as he ran both hands down the length of his face. No longer under the intensity of his scrutiny, she scrambled to seize the torn ends of her shirt and drag them across her body. The fabric did nothing to hide her secret, for the wet fibers snagged on her nipples and then tumbled off.
He spoke in a low, furious voice. “How long?”
She blinked at the question, not understanding.
“How long,” he repeated, “did you expect to play this game?”
Game.
Like this was a joke. Like she’d just been playing at being a sailor. Like she was some idiot on a dangerous lark. Like she hadn’t spent her entire life as a boy, surviving in the only way she knew how.
“If you hadn’t noticed,” she snapped, “I was born this way. If you hadn’t succumbed to the whims of that pack of dogs you call a crew,” she said, “this game would have continued indefinitely.”
“Who knows about this?”
“You. Obviously.”
“Who else." Spoken through his teeth.
“Not a soul.”
“Don’t lie to me, boy—” he caught himself on the word. He half-turned. She saw a muscle move in his cheek. “Someone is watching out for you. Not the idiot Welshman. He wouldn’t have risked the bath.”
“I trust no man. I’m not a fool.”
“You are the biggest of fools.”
“Fool enough to trick you for over a month.”
“But no longer.”
The consequences of that truth shivered over her, chilling her skin though the room was closed and hot and humid.
He turned and that gaze didn’t rest on her face, but roamed again, in astonishing leisure, down her throat, her breasts, and still lower, to linger where her bellybutton lay, a deep indentation in the stretch of her stomach.
“A girl,” he muttered, “with no protector, sailing on a privateer in the middle of the ocean. Do you have any idea what would happen if—”
“I’ve sailed with pirates since I was nine years old.”
“Do you understand what a man would do to you,” he said, stepping closer, “when he hasn’t seen a woman for months?”
She didn’t want to fall into that stormy gray gaze or notice the pale lines that fanned out from either side of his eyes. She didn’t want to see the throbbing pulse in his throat, or the way his mouth parted as his breath came fast. She didn’t want to notice the crescent scar right above one eye, or how his gaze fell unwittingly to her lips.
An uneasy look crossed his face. “This isn’t possible.” His jaw tightened, a shifting of bone. “You fought in battle. You stitched my wound. You loaded sixteen-pound cannonballs and—”
“You said I was a good sailor.”
“Who is your protector?”
“The only person who ever protected me,” she retorted, “died in Saint-Malo weeks ago.”
“Your lover?”
“My mother.”
Something flickered in his eyes. He took a step back and paced away, plunging his fingers through his dark hair. She wondered if he remembered the conversation they’d had on the ship outside Roscoff, when he’d tousled her hair. She thought he’d grown fond of her. She thought he felt some sympathy for her plight.
She could use that sympathy now.
“My mother made me into what I am,” she began, thinking of the razor, her burnt dolls, her mother’s hollow eyes. “When my father died we lost everything we owned—”
“A story told a thousand times. A story that never ends with a woman becoming a sailor on a privateer.”
“My mother showed me that there’s no hope for a woman in the world. She brought me breeches and told me I’d live better as a boy.”
“Is this better?”
Yes.
For her own sake, she swallowed the word. He wouldn’t understand. Consumed by their own troubles, men rarely spared a glance at a woman’s.
He snarled, “What’s your name?”
“Adrian—Adriana.” Her tongue stumbled over the extra syllable. “No one has called me that since I was a child. I am a boy, Captain—”
“You most definitely are not.” He tore the fabric out of her hands and spread the edges so he could see her breasts again. “You’re full grown, and long past the time for charades.”
“So,” she sputtered, not bothering to cover herself anymore, “will you steal what I will not willingly give?”
He raised one slashing brow. “So you do understand the danger.”
“Better than you ever will.”
“But you’re unwilling to pay the consequences.”
“Avoiding those consequences is exactly why I chose to live as a boy.”
How defenseless she felt, standing here so exposed. Without the dagger that Gwynn had knocked out of her hand, without Chou-Chou who she could hear scraping at the door, the only weapons she had were her words, her wits, and the will to be left untouched. Never before did she understand how right her mother had been to shield her from men.
The silence stretched and her thoughts tumbled over one another. Would he strip off the rest of her clothes? Would he put his rough hands on her breasts? Would he spread her legs wide and force her to take him inside her? With a tremor she remembered his privates.
Captain Wolfe was not a small man.
Her heart started to skitter. She forced herself to stay calm and clear-headed. She had very little to bargain with. Maybe she could convince him to keep her secret if she offered herself to him alone.
No.
Yet wouldn’t it be safer to service one man than be at the mercy of a hundred?
“You seem to have lost your wits, Miss Joubert.”
“I haven’t lost my wits,” she stuttered, her heart and mind racing, “any more than I’ve lost the ability to work as a sailor on this ship.”
“Out of the question.”
“I’ve proven my worth—”
“Whether you were a good sailor is irrelevant. You’re a woman, and a woman is nothing but trouble.”
“Yes, I remember,” she said, thinking about their last conversation. “We always want something from men.”
His jaw flexed. “Do you deny you want my protection?”
“No.” A thought came to her like a flaming arrow. “In fact, I’m going to demand it.”
“You aren’t in a position to demand anything.”
“But I am,” she said, in a triumphant rush. “You owe me a debt, Captain Wolfe. I’m calling it in.”
His jaw tightened. He looked at her like he very much wanted to tie her hands around the mizzenmast and set Drake on her with the cat-o’-nine-tails. Or at least tie her hands around the mizzenmast.
“Very well,” he said, in a voice so calm it unnerved her. “I’ll protect your secret. At least until we reach land.”
She let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. If he kept to his word—if he kept her safe until landfall—then she could get off this ship and hire on as a mouse on another ship and sail away to new places.
“I’ll need a new shirt.” She tugged on the tangled linen of her bindings. “I can’t work on the deck like this.”
“You’re not working the deck.” He turned her around and nudged her toward the alcove she noticed earlier. “You’re now my cabin boy.”
She stumbled toward the alcove, full of light pouring in from the stern window. An empty tub filled the space, but there was enough room to push it to one side and hang a hammock from the roof beams.
The thought passed through her mind that these would be better ship’s lodgings than she’d ever had.
“Cabin boy?” she said, diverting the discussion from what remained unspoken. “At half wages?”
“Still bargaining?”
“Always.”
His nostrils flared. He ran his gaze over her, from head to foot.
“I’ll get a full day’s wages from you, Adriana,” he said. “You can be sure of that.”