A Gentleman 'Til Midnight. Alison DeLaine

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СКАЧАТЬ she made her way to the quarterdeck and then to the main, just as they brought him aboard. Crew members crowded in around the rescuers. “Give them room!” she ordered, and they backed off instantly. “Is he alive?”

      “He was half an hour ago,” India said insolently, brushing past her to help remove the sling. Her blond braid hung like a rope over one shoulder as she deftly undid the hooks. Rafik hacked away the man’s white shirt and tan breeches, while two deckhands doused him with fresh water from the mop buckets. Now the orders came from Millicent, who forced everyone away except those who helped wash him.

      “Phil went to find some toweling,” William said, moving in beside Katherine.

      After a moment Millicent called over her shoulder. “He lives!”

      Katherine exhaled.

      The man lay naked and facedown on the deck as they continued to douse him until Millicent was satisfied that no salt remained. Phil returned with two lengths of linen and crouched by his side. His legs were long. Muscular. Katherine slid her gaze past solid buttocks to the broad expanse of his back and shoulders.

      “A fine form of a man,” Phil purred, drying him carefully.

      India snorted and snatched one of the towels from her hand. “Auntie Phil, he’s in his dotage!”

      Phil laughed at her niece. “In your eyes, any man over twenty-five is in his dotage.”

      “Exactly so.” Eighteen-year-old India smiled wickedly from beneath her tricorne hat.

      Millicent rolled the man over, revealing a sprinkle of dark hair on his chest, a rippled stomach and—

      Katherine looked away, straight into William’s laughing eyes. “I’ll wager you side with Phil this time,” he said.

      “He will need clothes,” she snapped. “Something of yours will do.”

      William leaned in, lowering his voice to a mock-whisper. “Are you sure? Because I rather had the impression you might prefer him without.”

      “Devil take you. You’re as bad as Phil.”

      “I heard that,” Phil called. “And I resent it deeply.”

      But Phil had been right about one thing. The man was definitely not in his dotage. The ordeal may have nearly killed him, but he looked strong, and he was large. Commanding. “I don’t want him in the infirmary,” she told William under her breath. “Too close to the crew. We can clear out André’s cabin and put him there, but in the meantime—” she hesitated “—put him in mine.”

      As expected, William’s brow ticked upward.

      “One word, and you’ll meet the end of my cutlass,” she bit out, but the threat had no effect on William’s amusement. “As soon as he’s been seen to, everyone will resume their duties or punishment will be meted out.”

      “Captain Cat-o’-nine-tails.”

      “If behavior warrants.” But they both knew she owned no instruments of torture. It was far more effective to offer good food, high pay and commendations for good behavior. “Fortune has smiled on him today,” she said, a bit too sharply. “We shall see if that changes once he is awake.” She looked once more at the newest person for whom she was responsible. The man was handsome—too handsome, with features that bordered on aristocratic and a stubborn, angular jaw.

      “We could use another man on the crew,” Phil pointed out.

      “True enough,” William agreed. “But then, we’ve no idea whether he knows his cock from a bowsprit.”

      In that same moment, the man’s eyes fluttered open. He looked up, straight at Katherine, piercing her with depths as green as a backlit Mediterranean wave. Something hot and liquid and unexpected shot through her, and a shiver feathered her spine.

      He knew the difference. She’d wager the entire year’s take on it.

       CHAPTER THREE

      JAMES WRITHED RESTLESSLY beneath cool linens.

      He was drowning—dragged beneath black water, sucked into frigid numbness. Wood splintered. Cracked. A timber shot from the water, and he made a desperate lunge. Grabbed hold.

      Wood turned to flesh beneath his hands. Cold became hot. Water became woman. The curling waves unraveled, tumbling, becoming hair like black walnut silk in his hands. Her body wrapped around him. Engulfed him. He gasped, tasting the wild sea on her skin.

      From somewhere far away, sultry voices pierced his dream. “...and have you try to bed him while he’s yet unconscious? Absolutely not.”

      “You offend me grievously, Katherine. I’m quite through with affairs. Tedious things. Besides, he could be anyone.”

      The voices threatened to tear him away. He strained to keep the woman alive, wanting. Needing. But she began to fade, slipping away.

      The voices broke through, stronger now. “For the moment, Philomena, he is our captive.”

      “Honestly, he hardly warrants such status.” A door closed. Footsteps tapped against wood. He awoke as if fighting the churning sea.

      “Nor does he warrant any other. Help me put this shirt on him before he awakes.”

      He opened his eyes to a sky-blue ceiling edged with gold scrollwork. His gaze swept over an ornate dressing table with an oblong looking glass, two armchairs upholstered in sapphire velvet, a chest of drawers inlaid with mother-of-pearl. He turned his head.

      A woman stood by the bed with a maroon tunic in her hands. Silken walnut waves fell to her hips from beneath a length of ochre cloth tied around her head in a makeshift turban shot through with shimmering threads. High cheekbones. Straight, finely sculpted nose. Statuesque profile, silhouetted perfectly by the light from a small bank of windows he recognized as belonging to a ship.

      He was on board a vessel. In the captain’s cabin.

      “Katherine. Look.”

      Her face snapped toward him. His gaze locked with glittering topaz eyes, and his pulse leaped. He struggled to think. To remember. He tried to lick his lips, but his mouth was powder dry.

      Someone else pushed in next to him—another beauty, this one with sable curls and wide, blue eyes. He felt a hand beneath his head, lifting, and a glass against his lips. Cool water slid over his tongue and he tried to gulp, but the blasted woman pulled the glass away.

      “Not so quickly,” she purred, and the glass returned. “Careful, now. Just a bit.”

      He sipped, then sipped again before she pulled the glass away.

      “More.” His voice croaked. The vessel rolled and creaked, lolling with the waves. And suddenly, he remembered. A storm. A wreck. Days upon days adrift at sea.

      A red flag with a yellow arm.

      “You СКАЧАТЬ