LITMIR.BIZ

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of you to offer, Harris, but I’m letting her sleep. I prefer my women conscious.’ He leaned one hip against a boulder. Instinct told him not to reveal how ill she seemed to be. ‘It could be four or five more days before we get word. I don’t want you lot getting rusty. Check the pilot gig over this afternoon and we’ll exercise with it some more tomorrow.’

      ‘It’s fine,’ the redhead grumbled and spat a stream of brown liquid into the fire. ‘Looked at it yesterday. Just a skinny jolly boat, that’s all.’

      ‘Your expert opinion will be a consolation as we sink in the middle of the bloody ocean,’ Luc drawled. ‘Dinner going to cook itself is it, Potts? My guest fancies broth. Can you manage that? And, Patch, bring me a bucket of cold water and a bucket of warm, as soon as you can get some heated. I don’t want her to taste of salt.’

      He did not bother to wait for a response, nor did he look back as he walked down to the little hospital building, although his spine crawled. At the moment they thought their best interests were served by obeying him and they were frightened enough of him not to push it, not after what had happened to Nye. That could change if the arrival of the woman proved to be the catalyst that tipped the fragile balance.

      He needed them to believe her conscious and his property, not vulnerable and meaning nothing to him. He didn’t want to have to kill any more of them, gallows’-bait though they were: he needed twelve to carry out this mission and they were good seamen, even if they were scum.

       Chapter Two

      The light was coming from an odd angle. Averil blinked and rubbed her eyes and came fully awake with a jolt. She was not in her cabin on the Bengal Queen, but in some hut. She had seen it before—or had that been part of the nightmare, the one that never seemed to stop but just kept ebbing and flowing through her head? Sometimes it had become a pleasant dream of being held, of something soft and wet on her aching, stiff limbs, of strong hands holding her, of hot, savoury broth or cool water slipping between her lips.

      Then the nightmare had come back again: the wave, the huge wave, that turned into a leering hulk of a man; of being stared at by a dozen pairs of hungry eyes. Sometimes it became a dream of embarrassment, of needing to relieve herself and someone helping her, of being lifted and placed on an uncomfortable bucket and wanting to cry, but not being able to wake up.

      She lay quite still like a fawn in its nest of bracken, only her eyes daring to move and explore this strange place. Under the covers her hands strayed, and found coarse sheeting above and below, the prickle of a straw-filled mattress, then the finer touch of the linen garment that she was wearing.

      There was no one else there. The room felt empty to her straining senses, she could hear nothing but the sea beyond the walls. Averil sat up with an involuntary whimper of pain. Everything hurt. Her muscles ached, there were sore patches on her legs, her back. When she got her arms above the covers and pushed back the flopping sleeves to look at them they were a mass of bruises and scratches and grazes.

      She was wearing a man’s shirt. Memory began to come back, like pages torn at random from a picture book or sounds heard through a half-open door. A man’s voice had told her to drink, to eat. A man’s big hands had touched her body, held her, shifted her. Washed her, helped her to that bucket.

      What else had he done? How long had she been unconscious and defenceless? Would she know if he had used her body as she lay there? She ached so much, would one more pain be felt?

      Averil looked around and saw male clothing everywhere. A pair of boots stood by the window, a heap of creased linen spilled from a corner, a heavy coat hung from a nail. This was his space and he filled it, even in his absence. She twisted and looked at the pillow and saw a dark hair curling on it. This was his bed. She drew a deep, shuddering breath. For how long had he kept her here?

      Water. A drink would make it easier to think. Then find a weapon. It was a plan of sorts, and even that made her feel a little stronger. She fumbled with fingers that were clumsy and stiff and threw back the covers. His shirt came part way down her thighs, but she was sitting on a creased sheet. Averil got to her feet, wrapped it around her waist, then staggered to the table. She made it as far as the chair before she collapsed on to it.

      There was a jug beside a plate and a beaker on the table and she dragged it towards her with both hands. She spilled more than she poured, but it was clear and fresh and helped a little. Averil drank two beakers, then leaned her elbows on the table and dropped her head into her hands.

      Think. It wasn’t only him, there were those other men. They had been reality, not a nightmare. Had he let them in here, too? Had he let them …? No, there was only the memory of the dark-haired man they had called Cap’n. Think. The rough wooden planks held no inspiration, but the knife next to the plate did. She picked it up, hefted it in her hand. He’d be coming back, and she might only have that one chance to kill him when he was off guard. When he was in bed. Kill? Could she? Yes, if it was that or … Her eyes swivelled to the bed. Under the pillow. She had to get back there. Somehow.

      Her legs kept betraying her as she tottered to the bed, but she made it, just in time as the door opened.

      He swept the hut with a look that seemed to take in everything. Averil clenched her hand around the knife under cover of the sheet, but it had been on the far side of the plate, out of sight from this angle. Surely he wouldn’t notice?

      ‘You are awake.’ He came right in, frowning, and looked at her as she sat on the edge of the bed. ‘You found the water?’

      ‘Yes.’ Come closer, turn those broad shoulders of yours, I’ll do it now, I only need a second. Where do you stab someone who is bigger and stronger than you? How do you stop them shouting, turning on you? High, that was it, on the left side above the heart. Strike downwards with both hands—

      ‘Where is the knife?’ He swivelled to look at her, a cold appraisal like a man sighting down the barrel of a weapon.

      ‘Knife?’

      ‘The one you are planning to cut my throat with. The one that was on the table.’

      ‘I was not planning to cut your throat.’ She threw it on the floor. Better that than have him search her for it. ‘I was going to stab you in the back.’

      He picked it up and went to drop it back beside the plate. ‘It is like being threatened by a half-drowned kitten,’ he drawled. ‘I was beginning to think you would never wake up.’ Averil stared at him. Her face, she hoped, was expressionless. This was the man who had slept with her, washed her, fed her, probably ravished her. Before the wreck she would have watched him from under her lids, attracted by the strength of his face, the way he moved, the tough male elegance of him. Now that masculinity made her heart race for all the wrong reasons: fear, anxiety, confusion.

      ‘How long have I been here?’ she demanded. ‘A day?

      A night?’

      ‘This is the fourth day since we found you.’

      ‘Four days?’ Three nights. Her guts twisted painfully. ‘Who looked after me? I remember being washed and—’ her face flamed ‘—a bucket. And soup.’

      ‘I did.’

      ‘You slept in this bed? Don’t deny it!’

      ‘I have no intention of denying it. That is my bed. Ah, I see. You think I would ravish an unconscious woman.’ It was not a soft face, even when he was not frowning; now he looked as hard as granite and about as abrasive.

      ‘What am I expected to think?’ she demanded. Did he expect her to apologise?

      ‘Are you a nun that you would prefer that I left you, helpless and unconscious, to live or die untouched by contaminating male hands?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Do I look like a man who needs to use an unconscious woman?’

      That had touched his pride, she realised. Most men were arrogant about their sexual prowess

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