Page 20 of The Pirate and the Pagan
“Aye, aye, sir,” came the immediate reply as a wiry-looking sailor of indeterminate age stepped up smartly and saluted.
“My lady’s boxes,” said Ruark Helford crisply.
Summer shuddered. He who must be obeyed, she thought with a slight tinge of apprehension. Much to her surprise he did not show her down to his cabin but took her to a small, well-appointed cabin located forward in the bow.
“You will see I am observing all the proprieties,” he said huskily. “I knew if I offered you a cabin adjoining mine, you would refuse.”
Summer let out a tiny sigh of relief. At last he had gotten the message that she was a lady. She could afford to unbend a little. She looked up at him and reached out a hand which aimed for his arm, but managed to fall upon his broad chest. “You have been so very kind to me, Lord Helford,” she murmured, and she felt the strong beat of his heart beneath her hand. In one more second she knew she would be swept up in his arms, but at that very moment Mr. Cully pushed open the cabin door with his knee and swung two heavy boxes from his shoulders.
Ruark looked down at her ruefully. “When you have everything you need, lock this cabin door until morning. That is an order. Good night, Lady Summer.”
When he had gone, she leaned her back against the door and threw her muff into the air with a little whoop of joy. Before she was done with him she’d have him eating out of her hand like her stallion Ebony. Mr. Cully returned with the last of her luggage, showed her the little cabinet which contained water, soap, and towels, then drew the leather curtains across the latticed window from which could be observed the deck and above that the quarterdeck if you crouched at the right angle upon the cushioned window seat.
“May I have a little wine, Mr. Cully?”
He indicated a rosewood panel in the wall and showed her how to open it. Inside silver goblets and a decanter of wine were fastened in brackets and a solid silver box held dry biscuits. He said in broad cockney, “’Is nibs runs a tight ship, m’lydy.” He touched his forelock and spirited himself through the door like a wraith.
She pushed home the bolt. “Weil, Ruark Helford, I’ll obey the first order you’ve given me … after that we’ll see!”
After Summer examined her surroundings, reading the barometer which indicated a storm, twirling the globe of the world in its wooden frame, and feeling the soft wool blankets which made up the berth, she sipped two glasses of the full-bodied red wine, turned the oil lamp low, and undressed.
She didn’t want to disturb the beautiful new clothes she had packed with such care and slipped into the bunk naked. The ship still at anchor rose and fell gently, lulling her to sleep. Vaguely she became half-aware that the ship was moving and the wind had picked up considerably. She turned over and went back to sleep.
She was rudely awakened by a thudding roar as a great wave hit the deck and the cabin stood on its end. She realized they must be out in the North Sea, being buffeted about by a gale before they could turn into the Strait of Dover. She threw back the blankets and staggered across the cabin to a porthole. The storm outside was raging. Rain swept horizontally across the heaving seas. As she struggled to shut the port she heard a man’s voice roar over the thunderous storm, “Hands to braces in the maintops,” and the ship gave a sharp plunge before she was brought around to the wind again.
Summer’s pulses raced. It was an exhilarating experience to be in a storm at sea. It was frightening and exciting at one and the same time and her blood sang recklessly. She would have given anything to be on deck at this moment, but she had more good sense than to distract the sailors when the ship was in peril.
She hugged herself. Ruark must have known about the storm, yet it hadn’t entered his head not to brave it. She clung to the braced window seat as the ship pitched and plunged. It seemed to climb upward over a mile-high mountainous wave, then wallow down into the trough.
Gradually the heavy weather lessened until the ship merely rolled about from side to side. The danger was past, but Summer knew a need to release her pent-up energy. She began to sway with the ship, keeping up with its undulating rhythm. Her dancing grew wilder, spinning and turning in an abandoned frenzy. Her black cloud of hair flew about her naked limbs until it was a great disheveled mass. She flung her head back in ecstasy as if she would sacrifice herself to some ancient sea god.
Ruark Helford had had no time to spare for his passenger until he had safely weathered the storm, but now that the sea was less heavy he thought of her immediately and imagined the great fear she must be experiencing, alone in the little cabin. His eyes were drawn down from the quarterdeck toward the cabin’s latticed windows, and as his eyes focused on a chink of light through the leather curtains he was rooted to the spot as he saw the wildly erotic dance of the completely naked girl. He was stunned. Could this untamed creature be the same innocent young lady he’d brought aboard earlier? He was mesmerized by her beautiful young body, spinning and twirling, her cloud of black hair alternately concealing then revealing her full, rounded breasts. He’d never seen a female act so abandoned before, not even dancers in Turkish brothels. And yet her natural grace and total lack of artifice lent a piquant innocence to her uninhibited display. Something inside him was irresistibly drawn to her free spirit.
He knew the storm had affected her to the same degree it had him. Its danger had excited her to such a pitch she had to expend her energy in a lavish, excessive physical outburst. If he made love to her, he knew she would be capable of the same wild excess, the same delirious abandon. His blood was high, his pulses pounded from battling the raging seas, and he, too, needed release. His tongue licked the salt from his lips and his eyes devoured the long slim legs crowned with a triangle of black, silky ringlets. Her arms flung out as if to summon a lover. My God, she was like a pagan. And then he knew exactly where he’d seen her before. It was as if she had posed for the figurehead on his ship, the Pagan Goddess. All his senses cried out for her. She was utterly different from any other woman he had known, His blood, already intoxicated by the storm, was now enflamed with lust.
He turned the wheel over to his second-in-command and stalked a direct path to her cabin. “Summer,” he called against the door, “let me in.”
There was dead silence.
“I must see for myself that you are safe. Open the door,” he commanded.
Again there was dead silence. Summer pressed against the inside of the door listening to the desire in his deep voice. She smiled and disobeyed his command.
The command changed to a subtle threat. “I won’t leave this door until you open it and let me see that you are unharmed.” He knew that if she opened the door to him, she would be symbolically opening her body to him and inviting him inside where he hotly lusted to be. The threat changed to a plea. “My lady, please open the door. The moment I see you are unafraid I will leave you to rest.”
“I’m perfectly all right, Lord Helford,” she replied. Then in a husky, teasing voice she whispered, “In fact … I’ve never felt better.”
His arousal was so strong, he knew he must have her. “Let me see for myself,” he commanded.
“We both know I cannot risk opening this door.” The warm sensual tone of her voice belied her words.
“Risk?” he challenged.
“It would deny propriety, my lord, to admit you to my cabin in the middle of the night.”
His hands were on the door to force it when he realized he was in a reckless mood, savage enough to force her once the door had yielded. He didn’t want to rape her, he wanted to exert such a strong power over her that she would yield herself to him in extravagant abandon.
“Good night, Lord Helford,” she teased.
