The Virgin Huntress (10 page)

“It’s not important at the moment,” he said. “You are going to catch your death if you don’t get out of those wet clothes. Have you another gown?”

“Only a c-clean shift,” she answered.

“Then that will have to do. I’ll just step outside while you change.”

“But I c-can’t,” she said. “I n-n-eed help with my l-laces.”

“Very well then.”

Vesta rose and gave him her back, lifting her tangled mass of dripping hair out of the way while he fumbled with the laces. Once her gown was loosened enough to remove, he limped to the door.

“Please don’t go back into the storm,” she said. “You’ll only get wetter and colder. Besides, I’ll only be a moment. You need only turn your back to me. Here.” She handed him one of his brother’s shirts she had found in a drawer. “You can change too.”

Hew knew his duty as a gentleman was to brave the weather again, but he was damnably chilled and tired, and hell, he’d already had her bare legs encasing him. Besides, he’d managed to stave off temptation for twenty-eight years so far, sometimes in indecently close quarters with men and their camp followers. What difference would a few minutes make? It was certainly not as if he desired Vesta. He’d been doing everything in his power to escape her. But even if he had felt
something
...any man with breath in his body surely would with an attractive young woman’s bare legs wrapped about him.

Still, when he inadvertently caught a glimpse of her in the shaving mirror on the far wall, he couldn’t quite avert his gaze. Her body was turned at an angle just obtuse enough to afford him a profile of a small but perfectly shaped breast as she pulled the shift over her head. The image burned into his brain, milky white, pink-tipped, filling him with a powerful desire to look his fill, to touch, to taste. No doubt it was just lingering frustration from that unfinished business this morning. Cursing his weakness, he looked away.

“I’m finished,” she said at last. When he turned around, she was wrapped in a blanket. She handed another to him. “The worst of it seems to have passed,” she remarked.

“Aye. It does seem to have settled somewhat,” Hew agreed. The violence of the storm had abated with the motion of the vessel returning to a less menacing rhythm.

“You never ate anything today,” she said, voicing aloud an observation his stomach had made quite some time ago. “Please, Hew.” She urged him to sit and then retrieved her basket of victuals. She handed him a meat pie that he devoured in unseemly haste and then poured wine which he partook from the glass this time. They ate in a silence that almost broached companionable until Vesta yawned.

“You should sleep,” he said. “I daresay our little adventure afforded you little repose last night.”

“True.” She smiled. “For I had to keep close watch over my captive.”

Although he glowered, Hew was secretly pleased to see the glint of mischief had returned to her eyes. She had remarkable eyes, really. Unusually large and lustrous with glints of green and gold that infused the brown. And lovely alabaster skin too, a thought that recalled the brief vision of her breasts. He shifted in his chair and forced his thoughts elsewhere. “Go and sleep, Vesta.”

“What about you?”

“I’m a soldier and accustomed to sleeping anywhere. I’ll do well enough here in the chair.”

“Then so will I,” she insisted.

“Vesta, must you thwart me at every turn?”

She set her chin at a defiant angle. “I will not take the bed when I caused you injury.”

“I told you it’s nothing. I’m accustomed to pain and accustomed to much more adverse conditions than sleeping in a chair. Please.” He groaned. “I just don’t have the strength to continue arguing with you.”

“Then don’t,” she said. “We can share it.”

“I’d really rather not,” said Hew, recalling once more the effect her presence had had once before while he slept. Although he was no longer influenced by laudanum, he feared the same result. Perhaps he would just rest an hour or two until she slept deeply enough that he could rise and finish the night in the chair. That seemed a reasonable compromise, although he realized the battle was already lost.

While he may have been able to explain away one night in the same room with her, due to the influence of the narcotic, two nights meant she was thoroughly compromised. He knew now that he had been kicking against the pricks. He would do the honorable thing and wed her, but he refused to give her the satisfaction of that knowledge. Not yet.

“All right,” he agreed. “You
under
the counterpane and me
on top
of it.”

C
HAPTER
T
EN

When Hew awoke, Vesta was atop the counterpane, curled against his side with an arm slung across his chest and a thigh thrown over his, her warm, soft flesh caressing his raging erection. He didn’t know if it was the lingering effects of the drug, the alcohol he’d drunk, or just exhaustion—likely a combination of all three—but he’d slept like the dead for the first time in four years. But now he was brutally awake and acutely conscious of the woman in his bed, for as much as he’d tried to ignore the fact, Vesta was indeed a woman grown, at least in the physical sense. And all his senses were physically alert to her. The violet fragrance had dissipated with the salt air, yet she still maintained that mysterious and slightly musky and flowery scent.

He slanted a gaze at her face, wondering how he would extricate himself from this entanglement of limbs without waking her, but then she opened her eyes. “Good morning, Hew.” She smiled into his. “Did you sleep well?”

“What the devil are you doing on top of the counterpane?” He glowered.

“I had to get up in the night to use the necessary, and when I returned, you had taken up most of the bed. I could not get back under the covers, so I had no choice but to curl up where I could.

“And now it appears you are curled around me.”

She grinned. “So it does. I find it rather pleasant, don’t you?”

“Pleasant is not quite the word that comes to mind,” he replied tersely.

She shifted against him, and his cock jumped. “Oh.” She gasped, suddenly aware. “Does this happen regularly then?”

“Yes. It is common for a man to awaken thus.”

“May I touch it?” she asked.

“Bloody hell!” he cried. “No! You may not touch it!”

“But I know how. I saw you only yesterday. Is that what you do to make it go away?”

“It is one of several methods,” he replied. “Another is just to ignore it.”

“But it is so large and swollen. Is it painful?

“No, just uncomfortable. Now, may we stop discussing my...” The appropriate word for feminine ears failed him.

“Phallus?” she offered. “That is what the grooms call it.”

“Why are you eavesdropping on grooms?”

“I used to watch the stallions mounting the mares.”

“You what!” Hew almost choked.

“Well, how else is a girl with no mother supposed to get any education? Although I doubt Mama would have told me very much. So there’s really no reason to be timid, Hew. I already know all about the mating process. And to the best of my knowledge, the stallions never
ignored it until it went away.
Please feel free to relieve yourself of it. I would even help you if you would like. I’m not the least afraid for I have seen
much larger
ones.”

Dear God in heaven.

Hew raised his hands in surrender. “That’s it. You can stop torturing me now, Vesta. You have won. I can no longer swim against the tide. We will return immediately to London where I will procure a special license with all dispatch, and we will wed.”

“You think that’s what all I wanted?”

“Isn’t it?”

“No! It is
not.
I wanted you to declare yourself.”

“Declare what?” he echoed.

“I need to know what you feel for me, Hew.”

“Vesta, my feelings regarding you may best be described in two categories—mildly amused at some times and maddeningly infuriated all the rest.”

“But that is no basis for a marriage,” she protested.

“I agree.”

“Then why do you want me?”

“Because you have forced my hand.”

“Well, you shan’t force mine,” she said. “For I won’t have you.”

“We have been two nights together. The choice is no longer yours.”

“Two nights in the same room means nothing!”

“Two nights in the same bed means everything. We
will
wed.”

“No, we won’t! I will have a man who loves me, or I will have no one!”

“As I said, the choice is no longer yours.”

“It
is
my choice.” She beat his chest with a tiny fist. “If I can’t have your undying love, I won’t take you. You will
not
force me to marry you, and I will make you swear to it.”

“That I shall
never
do,” Hew replied. “You have not only compromised your virtue, but your actions call my honor into question. I can’t allow that, Vesta. You have made your own bed, and now you must lie in it.”

“We’ll just see about that!” Vesta leaped from said bed and darted out the door.

“Where the devil are you going? You can’t run about in your shift, damn it!” She neither answered nor returned, forcing him to snatch his breeches on and follow her up on deck.

“Where is she now, Pratt?” Hew growled, nearly knocking the elder man to the deck when he emerged like a fired cannon ball from below.

“She dashed past me to the foredeck,” the bewildered man replied. “I don’t like the look ‘o this at all, Cap’n Hew.

“Don’t worry, Pratt,” Hew answered with an ominous scowl. “Her waywardness is coming to an end. Here and now.”

He caught up with Vesta on the bow where she balanced herself with one leg slung over the rail. “Now, Hew,” she said. “You will swear to me on your word of honor as a gentleman that you will not force me to marry you.”

“Or?” He raised a brow.

“Or I will jump overboard.”

“Will you now?” He retrieved a long coil of rope and tied one end around the foremast and then took two paces toward her.

“Stop! I told you I
will
jump.” She stepped over the rope rail and balanced on the other side. He noted the apprehensive look she cast at the waters below.

“No, you won’t.” He took another step forward until he stood at arm’s length. He tied the other end of the rope around his waist. “Although it would be contrary to all my inclinations at the moment, I would be obligated as a gentleman to retrieve you. Should you exercise such poor discretion, I promise you will very much regret your actions. And for the record, Vesta, I am a
very proficient
swimmer.” He reached out his hand. “Now, be a good girl for
once
and do as you are asked. Step over the rail and come back below.”

“I won’t, Hew. I won’t heed you until you give me your word.”

“You will do as you are told! I’m bloody tired of these games. You got what you wanted.”

“I did not!” she cried and let loose one hand just as the ship hit a swell, sweeping her feet out from under her.

“Damn it all!” Hew surged forward, catching her by the wrist just as she lost her grip. “Give me your other hand, Vesta.”

“I won’t,” she stubbornly repeated, now dangling by one arm. “Not until you promise me.”

“This is one battle you
won’t
win, my girl. For the last time, Vesta. Give. Me. Your. Hand.”

“No!”

Hew turned to Pratt. “Hold the rope in case I need more leverage.” With a great grunt, Hew heaved upward and backward, hoisting her high enough to catch her about the waist. “Untie me,” he commanded Pratt as he summarily tossed the shrieking girl over his shoulder. “You will follow behind and lock the door, Pratt. She is my charge now. I will brook no further interference, no further complicity from you. Do you understand that?” Hew noted that the little man had the wisdom to just nod.

“Put me down!” Vesta wailed. “You have no right to manhandle me like this.”

“On the contrary, as your betrothed husband, I now have
every
right.”

“You are not my betrothed!” Her kicks met air, and her fists flailed with futility.

Hew entered the stateroom and kicked the door closed. He waited only for the click of the lock before striding in his uneven gait to the bed. He sat hard and pulled Vesta from his shoulder only to throw her over his lap.

“What do you think you are doing!” she screeched.

“What your father should have done years ago, for it’s bloody well past time you paid the piper.”

***