Page 9 of The Heart of an Earl

Good thing she landed on his shoulders.

{ Chapter 3 }

The cabin was small.

Not that the Redthorn’s captain’s quarters on theRed Dragonwere palatial, but there was room to walk about. To stretch.

She stood still in the middle of the room, counting her breaths.

One. Two. Three. Four.

It did nothing to still the mania rattling about in her head.

Her limbs were frozen while her mind was hot oil on a skillet.

Breath held, her eyes shifted about while her body could not. The cabin the Englishman had deposited her in had a bed, three feet of open floorboards, with a small desk on one end and a chest at the other adjacent to the foot of the bed. That was it. That was all.

Her legs finally responded to the command to move and she walked from the desk to the chest. Four steps.

Four steps of space.

Her life continued to get tinier and tinier.

At least there was a window. Small grace.

She crawled onto the bed and her body started to quiver, every muscle coiling into tight balls. Shaking, she dropped onto her side on the bed, her eyes trained on what she could see of the grey sky above through the window, soft wispy clouds drifting under the thick blanket of grey hovering above.

The window faced the opposite side from where theRed Dragonwas still tethered to this ship. The sounds went on for an eternity. Cargo moving from one ship to the other. Barrels scraping. Boots thumping. Orders barked. Blasphemies grumbled.

Every muscle in her body had gone rigid, vibrating with tautness until the ropes between the two ships were severed and theFirehawkpulled free, moving through the waves, a horse unbridled.

What the hell have I done?

Traded sure death for uncertain death?

Her limbs turning to jelly, she rolled onto her back, staring at the rough planks of wood above her.

She’d done what she had to.

It’d been her only choice and now she had to live with it, come what may.

Words Redthorn had whispered into her ear for the last six years.

Come what may.

~~~

An hour passed before the door to the cabin swung open and the man—Des, the captain had called him—moved into the room carrying a basin of water. He went to the chest and set it atop, then dropped a cloth for washing onto the foot of the bed by her feet.

She watched him as he moved, truly looking at him without panic and the fight for survival clouding her sight. He was tall with wide shoulders. This cabin would be too small for him—even if he weren’t now saddled with her in it as well.

His brown hair—not quite long, not quite short—had streaks of blonde strands in it—too many days of sun on the ship. His nose straight and perfectly proportioned to the strong cheekbones that looked chiseled out of stone. The whole of him handsome, but it was his eyes that were his most interesting feature—canny hazel eyes that sent brown and blue and gold in an exploding starburst from his pupils.

Eyes that didn’t miss the slightest movement. Taking everything in. Calculating.

She swung in a circle, sitting up, and her calves dropped out from under her to drape off the side of the bed.

“You can wash.” His stare had been squarely set upon the basin since he’d entered the room and he finally looked up to her.

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