‘There was every need.’ She wriggled and he brought up his other hand and pinned her against the wood. Even under the strapping he could see the rise and fall of her bosom, catch her feminine scent, hot, furious, heady.
‘You pirate, you bully, you—’ The injustice, even though she had no way of knowing the truth, was the final straw. Wrestling with her had stimulated an erection that ached, his hands could feel her heat, he could hear her panting breaths, his nostrils were full of her.
Nathan took a step forward and kissed her hard on the mouth with none of the delicacy and restraint he had used before and with the full force of his angry frustration behind it.
Clemence’s gasp of shock was swallowed up by the fierce open-mouthed kiss. She grabbed his wrists, but she might as well have been wrestling with the capstan bars. Something slid through her, a strange mixture of anger and triumph that she had provoked him into this violent acceptance of her femininity.
But the anger was winning—the logical emotion, the wise one. She jerked up one knee and he moved in like a swordsman, almost as though he had expected it, turning her aggressive gesture into weakness as she found him between her thighs, his whole body pressed against her, the heat of his erection searing against her belly.
His tongue was in her mouth, thrusting. Clemence closed her teeth and he jerked back and looked down at her, his face stark. ‘Clemence—hell.’
Panting, she stared at him from a distance of perhaps six inches. He looked shaken, yet still angry. He should be grovelling at my feet. Nathan met her stormy gaze and something deep in those blue eyes stirred, despite the expression on his face. He desired her, it was not just anger at her outburst.
Before she could think, Clemence let go of his wrists and seized his head, dragged it down to her lips again, clung for a few dizzying moments and then pulled free.
‘Are you sorry? I should hope so,’ she said shakily. ‘So…so am I. Sorry.’ Slowly he lifted his hands away from her shoulders and she stared back at him, each of them cautious, as if they were two wrestlers not knowing if the other truly had called quits. ‘May I come back on deck? I won’t say anything, I promise.’ There was nothing she could do, except watch and pray that Raven Princess could outrun them. And if the worst happened, then it was her duty to stand and watch it, not cower in her cabin with her head under the pillow.
‘Clemence, what just happened was madness.’ Nathan touched her swollen lower lip with the back of his fingers.
‘Well, it wasn’t very sensible,’ she agreed shakily, ‘but I think we can forgive ourselves, because otherwise we are going to have to spend some very long, silent hours in that cabin.’ He was still looking grim, but that produced a reluctant grin.
‘Come on, then. Hell, your mouth is swollen. You look as though you’ve been kissed hard.’ Clemence narrowed her eyes at him. Nathan shrugged, his smile twisting wryly, raised his wrist to his mouth and bit with a grimace. Blood welled from the puncture and he smeared it onto her lip and down her chin. ‘There. Look cowed, I’ve cuffed you, cut the inside of your lip.’
‘All right.’ Feeling quite adequately cowed, and more than a little confused, Clemence dug a bandana out of her pocket and held it to the side of her mouth, bracing herself for their reappearance on deck and Cutler’s hard stare.
But there was no need to fear they were of the slightest interest to anyone; as they reached the rail there was a shout from above. ‘Frigate!’
McTiernan froze, then a stream of low-voiced invective hissed from between his clenched teeth. Most of the words meant nothing to Clemence, but the sheer malevolence of it chilled her to the bone.
Beautiful, sunlit, the white sails of the distant naval ship strained in the wind, bringing
her into a direct line between hunter and hunted. Clemence thought she had never seen anything more wonderful in her life.
‘There’s time to take the smaller ship.’ Her jaw dropped as Nathan called up to McTiernan. He began to climb to the poop deck. ‘We could board her, grab any portable valuables. Cut and run.’
Nathan? Clemence stared, disbelieving, as the men talked. Yes, she could accept, just, that he was the navigator, that when they went into action he would take part, but that he would deliberately incite McTiernan to take a helpless ship shocked her to the core.
‘No, that bastard will see us, the visibility is too good. Mr Cutler, take us back behind Lizard Island and into the pool, we’ll skulk like curs until that damn King’s ship’s gone and then…’ he showed his stained teeth in a humourless grin ‘…then we’ll take the next thing that shows a bowsprit, and God have mercy on them, because I won’t.’
Clemence did not need any instructions to stay out of the way. She retreated to her perch amongst the casks andwatched, blank-eyed, as the ship turned tail back into the shelter of Lizard Island. The watering crew were waiting on the beach, but the Sea Scorpion kept going. Surely McTiernan was not going to abandon his own men and a valuable jolly boat?
Puzzlement broke through her misery as she saw the topsails were being reefed in, then the mainsail. Boats were lowered, lines thrown out to them. As Sea Scorpion’s speed dropped to a glide, the boats took up the slack and began to steer her towards what seemed to be sheer cliff. Men in two of the boats that were not towing rowed right up to the tumbling vegetation and she realised that they were pulling back a screen of greenery to reveal the tight mouth of an entrance.
Slowed to walking pace now, the ship slid forward, her shadow black on the white sand, fish shoals darting away as though at the approach of a giant predator. They were through the screen, into an almost circular sea pool. Clemence had seen inlets like this before, caused when the roofs of caves collapsed; she’d even swum in one in the days before she had become a virtual prisoner, a million years ago.
So, this was McTiernan’s secret hideaway and, thanks to Nathan showing him the shortcut through the sea passage, he was now even closer to Kingston harbour and had an ideal route to surprise the rich merchantmen leaving it.
The jolly boat with the water casks came through the gap in the wake of the flotilla of rowing boats, and the screen of creepers was hauled back into place. It was perfect, Clemence realised, standing up on the casks to look around. There was even a beach at the far end big enough for some shacks. Used, no doubt, for storing plunder. The only thing it was lacking was a source of fresh water, hence the laborious business of filling the casks from the waterfall further along the beach.
The anchor chain roared out through the hawsehole and Sea Scorpion came to rest, bobbing grotesquely in its idyllic setting like its namesake in the middle of an exquisite Meissen bowl.
‘There you are.’ It was Nathan, hands on hips, eyes screwed up against the sun dazzle.
‘How could you?’ she hissed.
He leaned in close with a jerk of his head to bring her hunkering down so he could murmur in her ear. ‘Would you believe to try to delay us for the frigate to arrive?’ he enquired.
‘And risk capture yourself? How naïve do you think I am?’ Nathan opened his mouth to speak. ‘No, don’t answer that.’