LITMIR.BIZ

      4

      Ridiculous! She was dreaming that she had been carried off by a dangerous-looking pirate, a scarf tied over his head and a black patch covering one eye. He was going to make her walk the plank, but instead of the icy shock of sea-water closing over her head she fell onto something soft. So comfortable, and she was so sleepy! She thought she could hear voices somewhere over her head, but the words slid across the fringes of her mind without really registering.

      “And what is the meaning of this, if I may ask?”

      “What the hell does it look like? She ran right into my arms tonight, and quite providentially as it turned out. I’ve no desire to make an enemy of the prime minister. Look after her for me, would you? They’ve got the gaming tables set up downstairs, and I don’t want her jumping out of the window before I get back.”

      “So now ye’ve taken to drugging your females before ye take them?”

      “Don’t come all Calvinist over me, Donald! And she’s drunk, not drugged. Give her something to eat if she wakes up, will you? And help me off with this damned coat!”

      “Royalty or not, it’s no decent company that you’ve taken to keeping since we’ve been in this godforsaken, hot country. And that’s no more than a wee bit of a girl you’ve brought to your bed. What’s wrong with all those other fast females who’ve been makin’ eyes at you?”

      “For God’s sake, stop your preaching and leave me to my own kind of damnation!”

      The door slammed, and Marisa shivered in her sleep, murmuring incoherently. Everything that had happened during the past few weeks to change her whole life had caught up with her like a cloudburst, and now, limp with exhaustion and the effects of wine, she was dead to the world.

      The pale dawn light was filtering through the windows when she woke up, feeling the chilly air on her body as the covers were pulled aside. Her eyelids were still so heavy they seemed stuck together, and her limbs felt cramped. But when she tried to move, a heavy weight pressed her down.

      “So you’re still here, after all. You might at least have undressed while you were waiting. Damn. I’m too drunk and too tired to have patience with clothes, little golden butterfly.”

      She heard a tearing sound, and was too paralyzed to either move or cry out. Far easier to pretend that she was still asleep, that this was not happening to her. A hand passed over her shrinking bare flesh, and she heard him say in a husky voice, “At least your skin is soft, and you’re yielding for a change.”

      Her dazed, half-open eyes stared into desire-narrowed, flinty grey ones without any real comprehension of what was happening, until with a feeling of shock she found her thighs nudged apart. She writhed, gasping, as his fingers touched her intimately, exploringly; and for a moment, as his body was poised over hers, she thought he would let her go. Her lips parted, only to be covered by his hard, demanding mouth, tasting of wine and tobacco. And at the same moment there was a stabbing shaft of agony between her thighs that seemed to tear all the way into her belly, causing her body to arch up against his with shocked surprise.

      She came close to fainting, feeling sure that he was killing her, that like Delphine, she was about to be ripped to pieces.

      Marisa heard a whimpering, moaning sound, like that of an animal in pain, and it took her some time to realize that the sounds she heard were coming from her own throat. She fought to be free, but her movements only seemed to incite him to a further attack on her helpless flesh; he drove himself deeper and deeper inside her, holding her wrists over her head when she attempted to push him away.

      It was no use. She was helpless—in the grip of a madman bent on hurting her, an animal.

      And at last, surprisingly, the stabbing pain gave way to mild discomfort, and then to a kind of lethargy as she lay with her limbs sprawled out and let him have his way.

      Her last thought, as she slipped into a state halfway between sleep and unconsciousness was, “And I don’t even know his name—nor he mine…how strange…” And further than that, she did not care to think just yet, for her head ached as badly as her bruised and violated body; closing her eyes against reality was much easier than being forced to face it.

      “So now ye’ve taken to raping helpless virgins, have ye? And handing them over to your fine aristocratic friends after, for their sport. Well, it may be that ye’re my captain, when we’re at sea, that is, but I’ve known you too many years to keep silent, and I’ll be speaking my mind, whether ye’d be liking it or not!”

      “I don’t recall that you’ve ever hesitated before, you old croaker! And as for the wench turning out to be a maid—how in hell was I to know? She played the tease very well, and there was talk of a lover. Curse your long face, anyhow, and her, too! Do you think I’ve a taste for virgins? If I had not been drunk, and in a bad mood into the bargain…”

      “They want her downstairs. You heard them. And the poor wee creature still in a faint, or maybe bleeding to death from the way you used her. It’s wondering, I am, what you intend to do now. And I might add—”

      The harsh voice of the younger man turned into a snarl. “Spare me, Donald! I’m in no mood to listen to more! I’ll leave it to your ingenuity to get rid of the gypsy wench. You can take her back to their encampment outside Seville and give her as much money as you think it would take to soothe her wounded sensibilities. The stupid slut! All she had to do was to tell me she hadn’t been with a man before, and I’d have let her run away. But she seemed anxious to find the kind of fate she met with. Well—get her away. I’ll tell my friends she escaped out of the window. And mind you—” still adjusting his hastily tied cravat, the captain paused to let his grey eyes bore into his manservant’s doleful brown ones “—I expect to see you aboard ship and ready to sail when I reach Cadiz three days from now. Better not let those damned gypsies spirit you away—or let her lead you into a clever little ambush!”

      The voices and harsh sounds of arguing had roused Marisa out of an uneasy doze, but she was afraid to open her eyes until she heard the door slam behind him. Then, cautiously, she peeked from behind her long eyelashes, trying not to blink at the harsh sunlight that filtered through. She was lying in an enormous canopied bed, the curtains drawn back far enough to let her catch a glimpse of a large and luxuriously furnished room, its walls hung with tapestries and paintings that made her want to blush. There was a fireplace in one corner; coals still smoldered hotly in spite of the heat of the day. Beyond the widely opened windows she caught a glimpse of a stone terrace and a fountain that cast a shower of silvery droplets into the sunlit air.

      She stirred uneasily, suddenly becoming aware of her nakedness under a thin sheet that felt like silk against her tingling flesh. And with that first tentative movement all the horrifying memories she had been trying to hold away rushed back. She sat up abruptly, gave a smothered gasp, and then snatched the sheet up to cover her naked breasts as the man who had been standing in the middle of the room turned to gaze at her with a worried, frowning look.

      He spoke English, but with a strange, burring accent that made his words difficult to understand.

      “So you’re awake, puir lassie! Now, now, there’s no need to look at me like that, I’m not out to harm you, you know. And if I’d had a true understanding of how it was, I’d not have permitted what took place. But I suppose ye don’t even understand what I’m saying, poor child, do you?”

      The kind, even pitying, note in his voice, coupled with what she had overheard earlier, made Marisa want to trust him, this stocky man with short-cropped reddish-grey hair, and brown eyes that reminded her of a spaniel’s.

      Mother Angelina had personally seen to her education—and the reverend mother had, at one time, been a noblewoman. “You have to know of

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