The Captain's Caress (6 page)

A robust chuckle escaped him. “That’s not a very flattering reaction, milady. Don’t you find me attractive?” Beyond the power of speech, Summer could only shake her head. “My vanity has led me into error again,” he said in mock distress. “Smith often tells me that preoccupation with one’s appearance is an unhealthy obsession.” He dropped his breeches to the floor, and their soft plop sent shock waves racing through Summer’s every fiber.

“Maybe you’ll be good enough to satisfy my vanity on one point. Am I more pleasing to the eye than your precious husband?” Summer didn’t answer. “Don’t be afraid to look at me. I’m not embarrassed,” he assured her.

Summer shuddered convulsively, and pulled another pillow over her head.

“Come now, milady, it can’t be that bad. After years of watching nearly naked men in the fields, you’re surely not suffering from an excess of modesty.”

Summer clapped the pillows tightly over her ears.

“No? Well, maybe I was mistaken, but I’m disappointed.” He put on fresh britches and laced them up. “I was looking forward to hearing my praises on your lips. I guess we’ll have to save that for some other time.” He reached for a clean shirt and began to button it up. “You’d better be thinking about what you want to wear. There isn’t much time left and you haven’t laid out anything yet. Dinner waits for no one on the
Windswept,
not even the captain.” Finished with buttoning his shirt, he sat down to put on his shoes. “Of course, you can wear that gown if you like, but I think I ought to point out that, what with throwing yourself about, it’s a good deal crumpled. You do have lovely hair, but as you’ve got it under a pillow at the moment, I’m unable to say whether it stands in need of attention.” Brent stood up and began to tie his tie. “I’ll send someone to give your shoes a good brushing, but of course you’ll have to decide which pair you’re going to wear. That can’t be too easy with your face buried in the sheets. On the other hand, maybe you already know what you mean to put on.” He paused, raised his chin, and then let it settle slowly into the soft, snowy folds of his cravat. He studied himself in the mirror to see that his appearance satisfied him. Assured on this point, he began to brush his hair. Brent never wore a wig, and his glistening locks fell easily into place with a few practiced sweeps of the soft brush. After one last look in the mirror, he turned back to Summer.

“You can dig yourself out now,” he said, repressed laughter in his voice. “Except for my waistcoat, which I will put on as soon as I find it, I offer nothing to offend your modesty. I make no guarantees as to your reaction to my face, but at least my propriety is beyond question.”

Summer stirred, but she didn’t lift her head from the bed.

“Oh, come now. This pretense of maidenly modesty has gone on long enough. If you don’t begin changing soon, you’ll be late for dinner, and no one will forgive you if you spoil one of Jacques’ dinners.”

“You promise you’re dressed?” a muffled voice asked from under several pillows.

“For God’s sake, woman, I said I was, didn’t I?”

Summer took the pillows off her head and tentatively opened her eyes.

“I had to make sure,” she said, sitting up. Brent was just making the final adjustments to his waistcoat when she saw him, and her eyes opened wide in wonder. He was a god, by far the most handsome man she’d ever seen. She had never had a clear image in her mind of the man she hoped she would meet someday, but she knew in an instant that she was looking at him now.

He wore black patent leather shoes, rounded at the toe and decorated with silver buckles. His powerful calves were enclosed in tight white hose, and the bulging muscles of his thighs strained against dark green skin-tight satin breeches that left no doubt of his masculinity. His waistcoat was of a rather plain design, but loosely cut so as not to confine his body too tightly. A snowy cravat billowed at his throat, and his hair was tied with a black ribbon at the back. His only jewelry was a pair of heavy gold rings set with precious stones—he wore one on each hand—and a gold chain that was attached to the watch which he kept in his right pocket. He was everything she’d hoped, dreamed, and prayed for, the perfect embodiment of a young girl’s dream, and he stood right in front of her, still grinning at her in a way that made her mind go blank and her body become a limp, nerveless bundle.

With one last look in the mirror he turned to Summer. “I have a few things that need attending to, so I’ll leave you alone since you don’t seem to appreciate my presence.” He reached into a narrow closet and pulled out the most gorgeous coat Summer had ever seen. Its coloring matched the green of his breeches, and it was decorated with silver braid and black buttons. “I think you ought to reconsider my offer,” he said as he struggled into the tight-fitting coat. “You have no idea how helpful I can be in the bedroom.”

Summer blushed all over again. “I don’t want your help,” she declared quickly. “I can take care of myself.”

“You’ll be glad to have it,” he insisted, smoothing out the wrinkles on the sleeves. “I’ll come back in half an hour. Be ready, or you’ll sit down in what you have on.”

“I’ll be ready,” she pledged, so glad to be spared his bedeviling presence that she would have promised anything. “It won’t take me very long if I can find what I need,” she said, surveying the disorder around her.

“If you can’t find it, do without it. I doubt anyone would know the difference.” He left her without waiting for a response.

For a few minutes Summer was too unnerved to move. That she was a prisoner on a pirate ship was almost too fantastic to believe. But that she was about to dress for a formal dinner prepared by a French chef was too incredible even for a dream. This day was assuming nightmarish proportions. Who was this man that could maintain such a table at sea, and what did he mean to do with her?

She broke out of her reverie with a jerk. She had to hurry, or she’d never be dressed before he returned. She doubted that he kept his temper when anyone displeased him, and she had not the least doubt that, if she were not already in her gown, he would
put
her in it. The thought lent speed to her movements. She didn’t want to give him any excuse to touch her; she wasn’t sure she could stand it.

Chapter 5

A sharp knock at the door startled Summer into fumbling with her buttons. “Are you ready yet?” called the now-familiar voice.

“Almost,” she answered, as Brent’s imposing frame filled the doorway. “It’ll just take a minute more.” She tried once again to do up the buttons at the back of her dress, but she still couldn’t reach all of them.

“Let me do that,” Brent said. “You’ll give yourself a backache, and not be done before midnight.”

“I can do it by myself,” Summer insisted, twisting away from him. Brent took her firmly by the shoulders.

“Don’t be a fool. You know you’ve been trying to button that dress for the last five minutes, and you’ll still be at it an hour from now if I don’t do it for you. I promise I won’t rape you before dinner, so there’s no need for all this running away.”

Summer was speechless; Brent had put her barely realized fears into words. “You should be ashamed to mention such a subject before a lady,” she said after a stunned pause.

“I’m not that weak-minded,” replied Brent, fastening the last button. “You should never be afraid of words.”

“But words and thoughts are the precursors of action,” she argued. “The more familiar you are with an idea, the less fearful you are of its taboos.”

“Well you’re certainly not stupid,” he said with less mockery than she expected. “I was sure only a featherhead would marry Gowan.”

“You don’t need to go into that again,” she answered coldly. “You have made it quite plain to me
and
to every man on the two ships how you feel on that subject.” Brent raised his eyebrows as she stopped to gather up a shawl.

“Feisty little filly, aren’t you? I’ll wager you and the earl have some rare evenings in that draughty old castle of his.”

“What passes between my husband and myself is no concern of yours,” Summer said in her most haughty voice. “I don’t discuss such matters with anyone.”

Brent’s eyebrows drew a little closer together and the lines around his mouth tightened. “I don’t plan to
discuss
them either. I have something very different in mind,” he said, his voice devoid of all warmth.

Summer wondered about the significance of his words and his abrupt changes of mood, but there was nothing in his impassive face to give her a clue as to what his thoughts might be or what he was going to do next. He was the most contradictory, unpredictable human she had ever encountered, and she fervently wished she had never set eyes on him.

Brent took her shawl out of her hands, draped it over her shoulders, and opened the door. “After you, milady,” he said, standing back. The passageway was too narrow for them to walk abreast, and Summer had to step aside to allow Brent to throw open a door only a few steps away on the opposite side of the passage. She stepped into a medium-size room with a low, beamed ceiling, almost entirely taken up by a large table. A half-dozen men, anxious and ill at ease, rose to their feet when she entered the chamber; the one she knew to be Smith came forward to lead her to her chair.

“Good evening, milady,” he said, looking a trifle uncomfortable in this unfamiliar role. “We’re pleased you could join us.”

“Sit down, Smith, and dispense with the pretty speeches,” Brent growled. His rude words and the curious staring eyes all around her made Summer acutely uneasy, but Smith seemed unaffected. He escorted her to her place at the foot of the table with deliberate calm, and then seated himself on her right. Brent gave the signal for the first course to be brought in, and thus began the most memorable meal of Summer’s young life.

The seven men at the table ranged in age from thirty-three, Smith being the oldest, down to about seventeen. Talk was not confined to one’s neighbor, and, on occasion, it became rather boisterous. The men grinned sheepishly and dropped their voices to a polite level whenever the captain called them down, but minutes later they were noisily trying to make themselves heard over their tablemates once again.

Summer ate her dinner in near silence; she didn’t feel comfortable among so many strangers and she didn’t have much to contribute to the conversation. The men talked of the recent wars in the American colonies and of the continued friction at sea among England, France, and Spain. They took sides on various issues and cited facts to support their opinions. They were familiar with various methods of warfare, the most recent battles, and the individuals that figured prominently in them. And their references to politics showed that they had a grasp of the fundamental problems behind these international conflicts, and were able to discuss their effects on the participants.

Summer didn’t have the slightest idea what they were talking about half the time. She answered any remarks addressed to her as quickly as she could and then relapsed into silence. After several polite efforts to include her in the conversation, the men left her to her own thoughts.

Summer felt deprived as she listened to one youth excitedly discuss the efforts of Pitt to establish English dominance at sea. She was not stupid and she had a great deal of common sense, but her life had been bounded by her home and the plantation; no one had ever talked of anything else. Her parents had rarely entertained, and they had received news from the outside infrequently. Neither of them was interested in the turbulent forces at work in the new world or in the continuing conflicts of the old. And certainly neither had thought of developing Summer’s mind. Indeed; no one would believe that she
had
a mind after watching her stare at her plate all evening, ashamed to open her mouth.

“I’m afraid we don’t know how to act when there’s a lady on board,” commented Smith.

“I don’t understand much of what they’re talking about,” Summer said with a bleak smile, grateful for his thoughtfulness. “Maybe I’ll learn something if I listen.”

“It’s still unkind to exclude you.”

“But if they cater to me they won’t be able to talk about the things that interest them most, and that will ruin their evening.” She looked at Brent, who was patiently explaining a fine point to his eager listeners. “It’s bad enough they have to share their table with me. There’s no reason for them to adjust their conversation to include me.”

“They’ve already adjusted their clothing,” Smith observed dryly. “It won’t hurt them to make a few more alterations.”

“I was wondering if all pirates dressed like nobility when they came to dinner,” Summer said. She was startled to see the smile vanish from Smith’s face.

“If you would be willing to accept a word of advice, milady, I would suggest that you not refer to the men as pirates, or to the
Windswept
as a pirate ship.”

“But it is, isn’t it?” She faltered before his glacial stare. “I mean, you do stop ships and take their cargo.”

“That is true as far as it goes,” Smith said, without easing the severity of his tone. “We are commissioned by the Dutch government to harry the shipping of any country that attempts to establish dominance over the Atlantic. Our purpose is to keep the seas free.”

“But isn’t that what the English want, too?”

“Not in the eyes of the Dutch.”

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I don’t know whether you’re doing the right thing or not, but I perceive that you
think
you are.” She looked so perplexed that Smith relaxed. He wondered what she could be thinking about so intently; a few seconds later he found out.