Wicked Loving Lies - Rosemary Rogers MIRA

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help it—a highly unusual situation for a notorious privateer. All the same, there were the usual duties to be performed, just in case; the decks had to be kept clean and clear and the guns polished and cleaned for action. The Challenger’s slim, rakish lines were too well known to King George’s Navy to permit any relaxing of their vigilance; and it was well known that in spite of the so-called Peace of Amiens, there were British war frigates skulking off the coast of Portugal and in the Bay of Biscay itself. And so the Challenger kept to a slow zigzag course heading well out to sea before she turned back again to head for the French harbor of Nantes.

      A series of storms plagued them after they had rounded Cape Finisterre—both sea and sky as grey as the captain’s cold eyes. At first Marisa was far too sick and miserable to care if they broke into pieces and sank to the bottom of the ocean, in fact, in her lucid moments, between spasms of sickness, she almost welcomed the thought of an end—any end—to her misery.

      Except for Donald, who looked in occasionally, bringing her food she refused, and shaking his head in a helpless fashion, no one had time to wonder about her, not even Mr. Benson, whom she hardly saw.

      Marisa had lost all idea of time, and when the day came that she was actually able to sit up in her bunk, craving food in spite of the constant pitching motion of the ship, she had no notion how long she had lain there.

      “Ah, looks like you’ve found your sea legs at last, my girl!” Donald said with an attempt at cheerfulness as he brought her a watery broth which she gulped down voraciously. “I canna’ stay for long,” he added with a backward glance over his shoulder. “He’s in a worse mood than ever because of all the delays and having to run from a damned Britisher of only sixteen guns yesterday. Lost her in the fog, but it’s a shame we could not have stayed to fight her.”

      Marisa shuddered weakly, and he gave her thin shoulder a clumsy, comforting pat.

      “Ah, weel! Ye won’t be seeing any action, an’ that’s a relief. We’ll fetch into Nantes in a few days now, and I’ll get you off the ship with none being the wiser. You just stay below now and try not to worry. The captain’s an excellent good sailor, for all his hard ways—and it’s a powerful hard life he’s had, to make him that way, too. You couldna’ care for that though, could you, puir little lass? It’s like a little drowned mouse ye look now, with no one ever suspecting ye’re a lass after all. You’ll need a lot of feeding up once you’re safe with your relatives.”

      When Donald had left, Marisa managed to wriggle out of her bunk and found her knees too weak to hold her. Just then the ship dipped into a deep wave-trough and rose up again, almost on its end, and she slammed against the bulkhead with a force that almost stunned her.

      ‘I’m surely going to die,’ she thought as she crawled across the floor. And the thought alarmed her only faintly, for she felt more than half-dead already. Tears of sheer weakness and exhaustion slipped unheeded down her pale, hollowed cheeks without her being aware of them. It didn’t matter; nothing mattered too much at this point. She could not even remember what she was doing here, being tossed from side to side like a tiny cork while she waited for the wave that would surely smash in the side of the ship and sweep her with it to oblivion.

      Somehow, miraculously, it didn’t happen. Mr. Benson came back to the cabin, smothered in oilskins, and lifted her back into her bunk, ordering her gruffly to stay there, for they expected the storm to last all night. He gave her a large, worn volume of the Protestant Bible to hold on to, and told her she should pray that she’d be saved. Still, he was as kind in his own gruff way as Donald had been, and Marisa nodded solemnly before he left her again.

      Huge, foamy waves smashed against the side of the ship. The porthole had been closed with a heavy wooden shutter, and Marisa had no idea whether it was night or day. As the storm gathered in intensity the timbers began to creak alarmingly, and she had to clutch desperately to the side of the bunk to prevent herself from being thrown out.

      Suddenly she began to fancy that they were about to go down—that everyone else must surely have been swept overboard leaving her alone, trapped in this cramped space like the little mouse Donald had called her. Had she really heard a cry, “Abandon ship! Abandon ship!” above the thunderous roaring of the wind-torn waves?

      Without quite knowing how, Marisa found herself clawing desperately at the door. She wrenched it open at last and was soaking wet in a second, buffeted by the fury of the storm that was raging all around. The door slammed shut behind her, and she slid along the suddenly sloping deck. A wall of pale-green water came to meet her, pushing her backwards, drenching her eyes and hair and face; her mouth was filled with salty water when she opened it to scream. So this was what it felt like to drown…. Her mind registered the thought in a detached fashion, even while her arms flailed desperately seeking some kind of handhold. And then, just as her feet slipped from under her, she was brought up short—an arm encircled her waist, holding her firmly as the water receded, and she heard the man she had cannoned into swear in exasperation.

      “What the hell!…”

      Choking and gasping, she was dragged roughly to the comparative shelter of a bulkhead on the lee side of the still-pitching vessel and shoved roughly against the wet wooden planking.

      “I thought I gave orders—” a voice she recognized only too well began, and then, still holding her pinned against the wall, he lowered his head, peering furiously into her averted face. “Who in hell are you? A stowaway?”

      Her wits coming at long last to her rescue, Marisa tried to wriggle away. “The cabin boy, señor. I—I was afraid—” After the quantities of seawater she had swallowed, her voice came out as a choked whisper.

      “Goddammit! Don’t you have sense enough to follow orders? You were to stay below because you were too sick to perform your duties!” He gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Well, now that you’re recovered enough to be up and about, you can get below to the galley and fetch up some hot grog. And look lively, muchacho, or I’ll throw you overboard myself!”

      He was capable of it. Oh, he mustn’t recognize her!

      “Get going,” he said grimly, and Marisa ducked under his arm, not knowing in what direction she should flee. The deck tilted alarmingly again at that moment, and once more he grabbed at her, to keep her from sliding against the rail. This time, though, his arm caught her under her breasts, their slight curve unmistakable through her sopping wet shirt.

      “Diablos!” He swore furiously in Spanish, and the next moment she felt herself dragged backwards, struggling helplessly against his strength until he kicked open a door and flung her bodily through it.

      “You’ll stay here until I have the time to get to the bottom of this whole affair,” he snarled ominously. “Fortunately for you, I have other things to see to right now!”

      The heavy door thudded shut, leaving her sprawled ignominiously on a luxurious rug. Marisa realized that she was locked in the captain’s own cabin.

      She lay there for a long time, wet and trembling, partly with cold and partly from sheer terror which seemed to numb all of her senses. Finally the sound of her own teeth chattering aroused her somewhat, and she lifted her head to discover she was lying in a puddle of water, which had soaked through the rug. A furiously swaying lantern overhead cast a dim orange light that flickered like the fires of hell, casting long, leaping shadows into the corners of the room.

      What would he do with her? Marisa glanced fearfully at the door, expecting him to burst through it at any moment. A pirate, a deserter from the English Navy who had used a stolen ship to turn robber, a man without scruple or conscience—a completely amoral rogue!

      The abuse she heaped on him mentally gave Marisa the strength to sit up. She moaned. She must be bruised all over, after being flung this way and that. And he would probably kill her for ruining his fine Persian carpet, if she didn’t save him the trouble by perishing with a chill. Some kind of practicality oozed back into her mind, giving her the strength she needed to pull herself slowly and painfully to her feet. Turning her head, she saw a pale, frightening face staring at her. She let out a small shriek, which was fortunately drowned out by

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