Join favourite author

Louise Allen

as she explores the tangled love-lives of

Those Scandalous Ravenhursts

First, you travelled across

war-torn Europe with

THE DANGEROUS MR RYDER

Then you accompanied Mr Ryder’s sister,

THE OUTRAGEOUS LADY FELSHAM, on her quest for a hero.

You were scandalised by

THE SHOCKING LORD STANDON

You shared dangerous, sensual adventures

with

THE DISGRACEFUL MR RAVENHURST

You were seduced and swept off your feet by

THE NOTORIOUS MR HURST

Now meet

THE PIRATICAL MISS RAVENHURST

Author Note

After five Ravenhurst love stories it is time to meet the youngest and most distant of the cousins. Clemence lives a life of privilege and comfort at the heart of Jamaican society until circumstances force her to make a choice—marriage to the despicable Lewis Naismith or flight.

Clemence has a plan—Ravenhursts always do—but it does not include running straight into the clutches of the most feared pirate in the Caribbean. There doesn’t seem any way out, unless she can trust both her instincts and the enigmatic navigator Nathan Stanier.

I knew Clemence would have the courage and wits to survive on the Sea Scorpion, but what is a young lady to do when she is comprehensively ruined in the process?

I do hope you enjoy finding out as much as I did. I felt sad to write the last word in the chronicles of Those Scandalous Ravenhursts, but perhaps one day I can return to their world and explore the life and loves of some of the other characters I met along the way.

RAVENHURST FAMILY TREE

Louise Allen has been immersing herself in history, real and fictional, for as long as she can remember, and finds landscapes and places evoke powerful images of the past. Louise divides her time between Bedfordshire and the Norfolk coast, where she spends as much time as possible with her husband at the cottage they are renovating. With any excuse she’ll take a research trip abroad—Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite atmospheric destinations. Please visit Louise’s website—www.louiseallenregency.co.uk—for the latest news!

Recent novels by the same author:

THE BRIDE’S SEDUCTION

NOT QUITE A LADY

A MOST UNCONVENTIONAL COURTSHIP

NO PLACE FOR A LADY

DESERT RAKE

(in Hot Desert Nights)

VIRGIN SLAVE, BARBARIAN KING

THE DANGEROUS MR RYDER*

THE OUTRAGEOUS LADY FELSHAM*

THE SHOCKING LORD STANDON*

THE DISGRACEFUL MR RAVENHURST*

THE NOTORIOUS MR HURST*

*Those Scandalous Ravenhursts

THE PIRATICAL MISS RAVENHURST
Louise Allen

MILLS & BOON®

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Nathan Oakman

who is sure to grow up to be a hero

Chapter One

Jamaica—June 1817

‘I would sooner—’

‘Sooner what?’ Her uncle regarded Clemence with contempt. ‘You would sooner die?’

‘Sooner marry the first man I met outside the gates than that.’ She jerked her head towards her cousin, sprawled in the window seat, his attention on the female servants in the torch-lit courtyard below.

‘But you do not have any choice,’ Joshua Naismith said, in the same implacably patient tone he had used to her in the six months since her father’s death. ‘You are my ward, you will do as I tell you.’

‘My father never intended me to marry Lewis,’ Clemence protested. She had been protesting with a rising sense of desperation ever since she had recovered sufficiently from her daze of mourning to comprehend that her late mother’s half-brother was not the protector that her father had expected him to be when he made his will. Her respectable, conservative, rather dull Uncle Joshua was a predator, his claws reaching for her fortune.

‘The intentions of the late lamented Lord Clement Ravenhurst,’ Mr Naismith said, ‘are of no interest to me whatsoever. The effect of his will is to place you under my control, a fitting recompense for years of listening to his idiotic political opinions and his absurd social theories.’

‘My father did not believe in the institution of slavery,’ Clemence retorted, angered despite her own apprehension. ‘Most enlightened people feel the same. You did not have to listen to what you do not believe in—you could have attempted to counter his arguments. But then you have neither the intellectual capacity, nor the moral integrity to do so, have you, Uncle?’

‘Insolent little bitch.’ Lewis uncoiled himself from the seat and walked to his father’s side. He frowned at her, an expression she had caught him practising in front of the mirror, no doubt in an attempt to transform his rather ordinary features into an ideal of well-bred authority. ‘A pity you were not a boy—he raised you like one, he let you run wild like one and now, look at you—you might as well be one.’

Clemence hated the flush she could feel on her cheekbones, hated the fact that his words stung. It was shallow to wish she had a petite, curvaceous figure. A few months ago she had at least possessed a small bosom and the gentle swell of feminine hips, now, with the appetite of a mouse, she had lost so much weight that she might as well have been twelve again. Combined with the rangy height she had inherited from her father, Clemence was all too aware that she looked like a schoolboy dressed up to play a female role in a Shakespeare play.

Defensively her hand went to the weight of her hair, coiled and dressed simply in the heat. Its silky touch reminded her of her femininity, her one true beauty, all the colours of wheat and toffee and gilt, mixed and mingling.

‘If I had been a boy, I wouldn’t have to listen to your disgusting marriage plans,’ she retorted. ‘But you’d still be stealing my inheritance, whatever my sex, I have no doubt of that. Is money the only thing that is important to you?’

‘We are merchants.’ Uncle Joshua’s high colour wattled his smooth jowls. ‘We make money, we do not have it drop into our laps like your aristocratic relatives.’

‘Papa was the youngest son, he worked for his fortune—’

‘The youngest son of the Duke of Allington. Oh dear, what poverty, how he must have struggled.’

That was the one card she had not played in the weeks as hints had become suggestions and the suggestions, orders. ‘You know my English relatives are powerful,’ Clemence said. ‘Do you wish to antagonise them?’

‘They are a very long way away and hold no sway here in the West Indies.’ Joshua’s expression was smug. ‘Here the ear of the Governor and one’s credit with the bankers are all that matter. In time, when Lewis decides to go back to England, his marriage to you may well be of social advantage, that is true.’

‘As I have no intention of marrying my cousin, he will have no advantage from me.’

‘You will marry me.’ Lewis took a long stride, seized her wrist and yanked her, off-balance, to face him. She was tall enough to stare into his eyes, refusing to flinch even as his fingers dug into the narrow bones of her wrist, although her heart seemed to bang against her ribs. ‘The banns will be read for the first time next Sunday.’

‘I will never consent and you cannot force me kicking and screaming to the altar—not and maintain your precious respectability.’ Somehow she kept her voice steady. It was hard after nineteen years of being loved and indulged to find the strength to fight betrayal and greed, but some unexpected reserve of pride and desperation was keeping her defiant.

‘True.’ Her head snapped round at the smugness in her uncle’s voice. Joshua smiled, confident. The chilly certainty crept over her that he had thought long and hard about this and the thought of her refusal on the altar steps did not worry him in the slightest. ‘You have two choices, my dear niece. You can behave in a dutiful manner and marry Lewis when the banns have been called or he will come to your room every night until he has you with child and then, I think, you will agree.’

‘And if I do not, even then?’ Fainting, Clemence told herself fiercely, would not help in the slightest, even though the room swam and the temptation to just let go and slip out of this nightmare was almost overwhelming.

‘There is always a market for healthy children on the islands,’ Lewis said, hitching one buttock on the table edge and smiling at her. ‘We will just keep going until you come to your senses.’

‘You—’ Clemence swallowed and tried again. ‘You would sell your own child into slavery?’

Lewis shrugged. ‘What use is an illegitimate brat? Marry me and your children will want for nothing. Refuse and what happens to them will be entirely your doing.’

‘They will want for nothing save a decent father,’ she snapped back, praying that her churning stomach would not betray her. ‘You are a rapist, an embezzler and a blackmailer and you—’ she turned furiously on her uncle ‘—are as bad. I cannot believe your lackwit son thought of this scheme all by himself.’

Joshua had never hit her before, no one had. Clemence did not believe the threat in her uncle’s raised hand, did not flinch away until the blow caught her on the cheekbone under her right eye, spinning her off her feet to crash against the table and fall to the floor.

Somehow she managed to push herself up, then stumble to her feet, her head spinning. Joshua Naismith’s voice came from a long way away, his image so shrunk he seemed to be at the wrong end of a telescope. His voice buzzed in her ears. ‘Will you consent to the banns being read and agree to marry Lewis?’

‘No.’ Never.

‘Then you will go to your room and stay there. Your meals will be brought to you and you will eat; your scrawny figure offends me. Lewis will visit you tomorrow. I think you are in no fit state to pay him proper heed tonight.’

Proper heed? If her cousin came within range of her and any kind of sharp weapon he would never be able to father a child again. ‘Ring for Eliza,’ Clemence said, lifting her hand to her throbbing face. ‘I need her assistance.’

‘You have a new abigail.’ Joshua reached out and tugged the bell. ‘That insolent girl of yours has been dismissed. Freed slaves indeed!’ The woman who entered was buxom, her skin the colour of smooth coffee, her hair braided intricately. The look she shot Clemence held contempt and dislike.

‘Your mistress?’ She stared at Lewis. No wonder Marie Luce was looking like that: she must know the men’s intentions and know that Clemence would be taking Lewis’s attention away from her.

‘She does as she is told,’ Lewis said smoothly. ‘And will be rewarded for it. Take her to her chamber, make sure she eats,’ he added to the other woman. ‘Lock the door and then come to my room.’

Clemence let herself be led out of the door. Here, in the long passage with its louvred windows open at each end to encourage a draught, the sound of the sea on the beach far below was a living presence. Her feet stumbled on the familiar smooth stone flags. From the white walls the darkened portraits of generations of ancestors stared blankly down, impotent to help her.

‘Where is Eliza?’ Thank goodness her maid was a freed woman with her own papers, not subject to the whim of the Naismiths.

Marie Luce shrugged, her dark eyes hostile as she gripped Clemence’s arm, half-supporting, half-imprisoning her. ‘I do not know. I do not care.’ Her lilting accent made poetry out of the acid words. ‘Why do you make Master Lewis angry? Marry him, then he will get you with child and forget about you.’

‘I do not want him, you are welcome to him,’ Clemence retorted as they reached the door of her room. ‘Please fetch me some warm water to bathe my face.’ The door clicked shut behind the maid and the key turned. Through the slats she could hear her heelless shoes clicking as she made her way to the back door and the kitchen wing.

Clemence sank down on the dressing-table stool, her fingers tight on the edge for support. The image that stared back at her from the mirror was not reassuring. Her right cheek was already swelling, the skin red and darkening, her eye beginning to close. It would be black tomorrow, she realised. Her left eye, wide, looked more startlingly green in contrast and her hair had slipped from its pins and lay in a heavy braid on her shoulder.

Gingerly, Clemence straightened her back, wincing at the bruises from the impact with the table. There was no padding on her bones to cushion any falls, she realised; it was mere luck she had not broken ribs. She must eat. Starving herself into a decline would not help matters, although what would?

The door opened to admit Marie Luce with one of the footmen carrying a supper tray. The man, one of the house staff she had known all her life, took a startled look at her face and then stared straight ahead, expressionless. ‘Master Lewis says you are to eat,’ the other woman said, putting down the water ewer she held. ‘I stay until you do.’

Clemence dipped a cloth in the water and held it to her face. It stung and throbbed: she supposed she should be grateful Uncle Joshua had used his ringless right hand and the blow had not broken the skin. ‘Very well.’ Chicken and rice, stuffed pimentos, corn fritters, cake with syrup, milk. Her stomach roiled, but instinct told Clemence to eat, however little appetite she had and however painful it was to chew.

She knew the worst now: it was time to fight, although how, locked in her room, she had no idea. The plates scraped clean and the milk drunk, Marie Luce cleared the table and let herself out. Clemence strained to hear—the key grated in the lock. It was too much to hope that the woman would be careless about that.

She felt steadier for the food. It seemed weeks since she had eaten properly, grief turning to uneasiness, then apprehension, then fear as her uncle’s domination over the household and estate and her life had tightened into a stranglehold.

It was pointless to expect help from outside; their friends and acquaintances had been told she was ill with grief, unbalanced, and the doctor had ordered complete seclusion and rest. Even her close friends Catherine Page and Laura Steeples had believed her uncle’s lies and obediently kept away. She had seen their letters to him, full of shocked sympathy that she was in such a decline.

And who could she trust, in any case? She had trusted Joshua, and how wrong she had been about him!

Clemence stood and went to the full-length window, its casement open on to the fragrant heat of the night. Her father had insisted that Raven’s Hold was built right on the edge of the cliff, just as the family castle in Northumberland was, and the balcony of her room jutted out into space above the sea.

When she was a child, after her mother’s death, she had run wild with the sons of the local planters, borrowing their clothes, scrambling through the cane fields, hiding in the plantation buildings. Scandalised local matrons had finally persuaded her father that she should become a conformable young lady once her fourteenth birthday was past and so her days of climbing out of the window at night and up the trellis to freedom and adventures were long past.

She leaned on the balcony and smiled, her expression turning into a grimace as the bruises made themselves felt. If only it were so easy to climb away now!

But why not? Clemence straightened, tinglingly alert. If she could get out of the house, down to the harbour, then the Raven Princess would be there, due to sail for England with the morning light. It was the largest of her father’s ships—her ships—now that pirates had captured Raven Duchess, the action that had precipitated her father’s heart stroke and death.

But if she just ran away they would hunt her down like a fugitive slave…Clemence paced into the room, thinking furiously. Her uncle’s sneer came back to her. You would sooner die? Let him think that, then. Somewhere, surely, were the boy’s clothes she had once worn. She pulled open presses, flung up the lids of the trunks, releasing wafts of sandalwood from their interiors. Yes, here at the bottom of one full of rarely used blankets were the loose canvas breeches, the shirt and waistcoat.

She pulled off her gown and tried them on. The bottom of the trousers flapped above her ankle bones now, but the shirt and waistcoat had always been on the large side. After some thought she tore linen strips and bound her chest tightly; her bosom was unimpressive, but even so, it was better to take no chances. Clemence dug out the buckled shoes, tried them on her bare feet, then looked in the mirror. The image of a gangly youth stared back, oddly adorned by the thick braid of hair.

That was going to have to go, there was no room for regret. Clemence found the scissors, gritted her teeth and hacked. The hair went into a cloth, knotted tightly, then wrapped up into a bundle with everything she had been wearing that evening. A thought struck her and she took out the gown again to tear a thin, ragged strip from the hem. Her slippers she flung out of the window and the modest pearls and earrings she buried under the jewellery in her trinket box.

The new figure that looked back at her from the glass had ragged hair around its ears and a dramatically darkening bruise over cheek and eye. Her mind seemed to be running clearly now, as though she had pushed through a forest of fear and desperation into open air. Clemence took the pen from the standish and scrawled I cannot bear it… On a sheet of paper. A drop of water from the washstand was an artistic and convincing teardrop to blur the shaky signature. The ink splashed on to the dressing table, over her fingers. All the better to show agitation.

She looped the bundle on to her belt and set a stool by the balcony before scrambling up on to the rail. Perched there, she snagged the strip from her gown under a splinter, then kicked the stool over. There: the perfect picture of a desperate fall to the crashing waves below. How Uncle Joshua was going to explain that was his problem.

Now all she had to do was to ignore the lethal drop below and pray that the vines and the trellis would still hold her. Clemence reached up, set her shoe on the first, distantly remembered foothold, and swung clear of the rail.

She rapidly realised just how dangerous this was, something the child that she had been had simply not considered. And five years of ladylike behaviour, culminating in weeks spent almost ill with grief and desperation, had weakened her muscles. Her dinner lurched in her stomach and her throat went dry. Teeth gritted she climbed on, trying not to think about centipedes, spiders or any of the other interesting inhabitants of the ornamental vines she was clutching. However venomous they might be, they were not threatening to rape and rob her.

The breath sobbed in her throat, but she reached the ledge that ran around the house just beneath the eaves and began to shuffle along it, clinging to the gutters. All she had to do now was to get around the corner and she could drop on to the roof of the kitchen wing. From there it was an easy slide to the ground.

A shutter banged open just below where her heels jutted out into space. Clemence froze. ‘No, I don’t want her, how many times have I got to tell you?’ It was Lewis, irritated and abrupt. ‘Why would I want that scrawny, cantankerous little bitch? It is simply business.’

There was the sound of a woman’s voice, low and seductive. Marie Luce. Lewis grunted. ‘Get your clothes off, then.’ Such a gallant lover, Clemence thought. Her cousin had left the shutters open, forcing her to move with exaggerated care in case her leather soles gritted on the rough stone. Then she was round, dropping on to the thick palmetto thatch, sliding down to the leanto shed roof and clambering to the ground.

Old One-Eye, the guard dog, whined and came over stiffly to lick her hand, the links of his chain chinking. There was noise from the kitchens, the hum and chirp of insects, the chatter of a night bird. No one would hear her stealthy exit through the yard gate, despite the creaky hinge that never got oiled.

Clemence took to her heels, the bundle bouncing on her hip. Now all she had to do was to get far enough away to hide the evidence that she was still alive, and steal a horse.

It was a moonless night, the darkness of Kingston harbour thickly sprinkled with the sparks of ships’ riding-lights. Clemence slid from the horse’s back, slapped it on the rump and watched it gallop away, back towards the penn she had taken it from almost three hours before.

The unpaved streets were rough under her stumbling feet but she pushed on, keeping to the shadows, avoiding the clustered drinking houses and brothels that lined the way down to the harbour. It was just her luck that Raven Princess was moored at the furthest end, Clemence thought, dodging behind some stacked barrels to avoid a group of men approaching down the centre of the street.

And when she got there, she was not at all certain that simply marching on board and demanding to be taken to England was a sensible thing to do. Captain Moorcroft could well decide to return her to Uncle Joshua, despite the fact that the ship was hers. The rights of women was not a highly regarded principle, let alone here on Jamaica in the year 1817.

The hot air held the rich mingled odours of refuse and dense vegetation, open drains, rum, wood smoke and horse dung, but Clemence ignored the familiar stench, quickening her pace into a jog trot. The next quay was the Ravenhurst moorings and the Raven Princess…was gone.

She stood staring, mouth open in shock, mind blank, frantically scanning the moored ships for a sight of the black-haired, golden-crowned figurehead. It must be here!

‘What you looking for, boy?’ a voice asked from behind her.

‘The Raven Princess,’ she stammered, her voice husky with shock and disbelief.

‘Sailed this evening, damn them, they finished loading early. What do you want with it?’

Clemence turned, keeping her head down so the roughly chopped hair hid her face. ‘Cabin boy,’ she muttered. ‘Cap’n Moorcroft promised me a berth.’ There were five men, hard to see against the flare of light from a big tavern, its doors wide open on to the street.

‘Is that so? We could do with a cabin boy, couldn’t we, lads?’ the slightly built figure in the centre of the group said, his voice soft. The hairs on Clemence’s nape rose. The others sniggered. ‘You come along with us, lad. We’ll find you a berth all right.’

‘No. No, thank you.’ She began to edge away.

‘That’s “No, thank you, Cap’n”,’ a tall man with a tricorne hat on his head said, stepping round to block her retreat.

‘Cap’n,’ she repeated obediently. ‘I’ll just—’

‘Come with us.’ The tall man gave her a shove, right up to the rest of the group. The man he called Cap’n put out a hand and laid it on her shoulder. She was close enough to see him now, narrow-faced, his bony jaw obscured by a few days’ stubble, his head bare. His clothes were flamboyant, antique almost; coat tails wide, the magnificent lace at his throat, soiled. The eyes that met Clemence’s were brown, flat, cold. If a lizard could speak…

‘What’s your name, boy?’

‘Clem. Cap’n.’ She tried to hold the reptilian stare, but her eyes dropped, down to where the wrist of the hand that held her was bared, the lace fallen back. There was a tattoo on the back of his hand, the tail and sting of a scorpion, its head and body vanishing into his widecuffed sleeve. Her vision blurred.

‘Come along then, Clem.’

There was nowhere to run to and the long fingers were biting into her collarbone. Clemence let herself be pushed towards the tavern. It was crowded, she told herself, inside she’d be able to give them the slip.

She knew what they were, and knew, too, that she would be safer by far with Uncle Joshua and Lewis than with these men. They were pirates, and the man who held her, unless scorpion tattoos were the latest fashion, was Red Matthew McTiernan.

They bundled her up the steps, across the porch and into the heat and light and noise of the tavern. She let herself be pushed along, her eyes darting about the room for an escape route as the crowd shifted uneasily to let McTiernan and his men through. This was a rough place, but the customers were reacting like foxes when the wolf arrives at the kill.

A man came forward, wiping his hands on a stained apron. ‘He’s over there.’ He jerked his head towards a table in the far corner.

The man who sat there was alone, despite the pressure for tables. He was playing hazard, left hand against right, his attention focused on the white cubes that bounced and rolled. He was tall, rangy, carrying no surplus weight. Built for speed, like a frigate, Clemence thought, staring at him when she should be watching for her chance. His hair was over-long, brown with sun-bleached tips, his skin very tanned, his clothes had the look of much-worn quality.

‘Stanier.’

He looked up, his eyes a startling blue against his dark skin. ‘Yes?’

‘They tell me you want a navigator’s berth.’ The man called Stanier nodded. ‘Are you any good?’

‘I’m the best in these seas,’ he said, his lips curving into what might, charitably, be called a smile. ‘But you knew that, McTiernan, or you wouldn’t be here.’

The bony fingers gripping her shoulder fell away, down to rest on the hilt of the sword that hung by the captain’s side. As a ripple of tension ran round the small group, Clemence eased back, poised to slide into the crowd behind.

‘That’s Captain McTiernan to you.’

‘It is if I serve with you,’ Stanier said, his tone equable. ‘And I will, if it is worth my while.’

‘You know what I’m offering,’ McTiernan snapped.

‘And I want my own cabin. And a servant.’

‘What do you think you are? One of his Majesty’s bleeding naval officers still? They threw you out—so don’t go putting on airs and graces with me.’

Stanier smiled, his eyes cold. ‘More fool them. I’m just the best navigator you’ll ever see, navy or no navy.’

Now. Clemence slid one foot back, then the other, half-turned and—

‘Oh, no, you don’t, my lad.’ The big man with the tricorne spun her round, fetching her a back-handed cuff that hit her bruised face. Blinded with the sudden pain, Clemence staggered, fell and crashed into a chair in a tangle of limbs.

She put out her right hand, grasping for something to hold on to, and found she was gripping a muscular thigh. Warm, strong—somehow, she couldn’t let go.

‘What have we here?’ She looked up, managing to focus on the interested blue eyes that were studying her hand. She looked down as the navigator lifted it from his leg, prizing the fingers open. An ink stain ran across them. ‘You can write, boy?’

‘Yessir.’ She nodded vehemently, wanting, in that moment, only to be with him, her hand in his. Safe. Lord, how desperate was she, that this hard man represented safety?

‘Can you do your figures?’ He put out one long finger and just touched the bruise on her face.

‘Yessir.’ She forced herself not to flinch away.

‘Excellent. I’ll take you as my servant, then.’ Stanier got to his feet, hauling Clemence up by the collar to stand at his side. ‘Any objections, gentlemen?’

Chapter Two

‘That’s our new cabin boy.’ Nathan Stanier studied the speaker. Big, of Danish descent perhaps, incongruously pin-neat from the crown of his tricorne to the tips of his polished shoes. Cutler, the first mate, the man with the washed-out blue eyes that could have belonged to a barracuda for all the warmth and humanity they held.

‘And now he’s mine,’ Nathan said. ‘I’m sure there’s someone else in the crew who can carry your slops and warm a few hammocks.’

The lad stood passively by his side. Nathan thought he could detect a fine tremor running through him—whether it was fear or the pain from the blow to his face, he could not tell.

The boy looked too innocent to be aware of the main reason this crew wanted him on board. It was no part of his plans to act as bear-leader to dockside waifs and strays, but something was different with this lad. He must be getting soft, or perhaps it was years of looking out for midshipmen, so wet behind the ears they spent the first month crying for their mothers at night. Not that training the navy’s up-and-coming officers was any longer a concern of his. Lord Phillips had seen to that, the old devil.

Cutler’s eyes narrowed, his hand clenching on the hilt of his weapon. ‘Let him keep the boy,’ McTiernan said softly. ‘I’m not one to interfere with a man’s pleasures.’ Someone pushed through the crowded room and murmured into the captain’s ear. ‘It seems the militia is about on the Spanish Town road. Time to leave, gentlemen.’

Nathan put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Don’t even think about making a run for it,’ he murmured. There was no response. Under his palm the narrow bones felt too fragile. The lad was painfully thin. ‘What’s your name?’

‘C…Clem. Sir.’ That odd, gruff little voice. Nerves, or not broken properly yet.

‘How old are you?’

‘Sixteen.’

Fourteen was more like it. Nathan gestured to one of the waiters and spun him a coin. ‘Get my bags—and take care not to knock them.’ He didn’t want his instruments jarred out of true before he’d even begun. ‘Have you got anything, Clem?’

A mute shake of the head, then, ‘They just grabbed me, outside.’ So there was probably a family somewhere, wondering what had happened to their son. Nathan shrugged mentally—no worse than the pressgang. He had more important things to be worrying about than one scruffy youth. Things like staying alive in this shark pool with all his limbs attached, making sure McTiernan continued to believe he was exactly what he said he was—right up to the point when he despatched the man to his richly deserved fate.

The boy scrambled down into the jolly boat, moving easily between the half-dozen rowers. He was used to small craft, at least. He huddled into the bows, arms wrapped tightly around himself as though somehow, in this heat, he was cold.

The rowers pulled away with a practised lack of fuss, sliding the boat through the maze of moored shipping, out almost to the Palisades. The sound of the surf breaking on the low sand-bar sheltering the harbour was loud.

He should have known that McTiernan would choose to drop anchor at the tip of the bar close to the remains of the infamous Port Royal. All that remained of the great pirate stronghold now after over a century of earthquake, hurricanes and fire was a ghost of one of the wickedest places on earth, but the huts clinging to the sand inches above the water would be the natural home for McTiernan and his crew.

It was darker now, out beyond the legitimate shipping huddled together as if for mutual protection from the sea wolves. The bulk that loomed up in front of them was showing few lights, but one flashed in response to a soft hail from the jolly boat. The Sea Scorpion was what he had expected: ship-rigged, not much above the size of a frigate and built for speed in this sea of shallow waters and twisting channels.

He pushed the boy towards the ladder and climbed after him. ‘Wot’s this?’ The squat man peering at them in the light of one lantern was unmistakably the bo’sun, right down to the tarred and knotted rope starter he carried to strike any seaman he caught slacking, just as a naval bo’sun would.

‘Mr Stanier, our new navigator, and that’s his boy.’ McTiernan’s soft voice laid mocking emphasis on the title. ‘Give him the guest cabin, seeing as how we have no visitors staying with us.’

‘What does he mean, guest cabin?’ Clem whispered, bemused by the captain’s chuckle.

‘Hostages. You need to keep them in reasonable condition—the ones you expect a great deal of money for, at any rate.’ And if you didn’t expect money for them, you amused yourself by hacking them to pieces until the decks ran scarlet and then fed the sharks with the remains. He thought he would refrain from explaining why McTiernan was nicknamed Red. Time enough for the boy to realise exactly what he had got himself into.

The cabin was a good one, almost high enough for Nathan to stand upright, with a porthole, two fixed bunks and even the luxury of a miniscule compartment containing an unlovely bucket, another porthole and a ledge for a tin basin.

Clem poked his head round the door and emerged grimacing. Amused, Nathan remarked, ‘Keeping that clean is part of your job. Better than the shared heads, believe me.’ It seemed the lad was finicky, despite the fact he couldn’t have been used to any better at home. ‘Come with me, we’ll find some food, locate the saltwater pump.’ He lifted the lantern and hooked it on to a peg in the central beam. Clem blinked and half-turned away. ‘How did your face get in that mess?’

‘My uncle hit me.’ There was anger vibrating under the words; perhaps the boy wasn’t as passive as he seemed.

‘You stay with me, as much as possible. When you are not with me, try to stay out on the open deck, or in here; don’t be alone with anyone else until we know them better. You understand?’ A shake of the head. Damn, an innocent who needed things spelled out. ‘There are no women on the ship. For some of the crew that’s a problem and you could be the answer.’

Clemence stared at him, feeling the blood ebbing away from her face. They thought she was a boy but even then they’d…Oh, God. And then they’d find she was a girl and then…‘That’s what the captain meant when he said he wouldn’t deprive you of your pleasures,’ she said, staring appalled at her rescuer. ‘He thinks you—’

‘He’s wrong,’ Stanier said shortly and her stomach lurched back into place with relief. ‘Lads hold no attraction for me whatsoever; you are quite safe here, Clem.’

She swallowed. That was an entirely new definition of safe. Whatever this man was, or was not, the fact remained that he was voluntarily sailing with one of the nastiest pirate crews in the West Indies. His calm confidence and size might provoke a desire to wrap her arms around him and hang on for grim life, but her judgement was clouded by fear, she knew that. When the rivers flooded you saw snakes and mice, cats and rats all clinging to a piece of floating vegetation, all too frightened of drowning to think of eating each other. Yet.

‘Right.’ She nodded firmly. Concentrate. She had to keep up this deception, please this man so she kept his protection—and watch like a hawk for a chance of escape.

‘Are you hungry? No? Well, I am. Come along.’ She followed him out, resisting the urge to hang on to his coat tails. As a child she’d had the run of her father’s ships in port, sliding down companionways, hanging out of portholes, even climbing the rigging. This ship was not any different, she realised, as they made their way towards the smell of boiling meat, except that the crew were not well-disciplined employees, but dangerous, feral scum.

They located the galley mid-ship, the great boiler sitting on its platform of bricks, the cook looming out of the savoury steam, ladle in hand, meat cleaver stuck in his straining belt like a cutlass. ‘You want any vittles, you’ll wait to the morning.’

‘I am Mr Stanier, navigator, and you will find food for my servant and me. Now.’

The man stared back, then nodded. ‘Aye, sir.’

‘And as we’re in port, I assume you’ll have had fresh provisions loaded. I’ll have meat, bread, butter, cheese, fruit, ale. What’s your name?’

‘Street, sir.’

‘Then get a move on, Street.’ He looked at Clemence. ‘Wake up, boy. Find a tray, platters. Look lively.’

Clemence staggered back to the cabin under the weight of a tray laden with enough food, in her opinion, for six, and dumped it on to the table that ran down the centre of their cabin. Stanier stood, stooping to look out of the porthole, while she set out the food and his platter, poured ale and then went to perch on the edge of the smaller bunk bed, built to follow the curve of the ship’s side.

What was he staring at? She tried to retrieve some sense of direction and decided he was looking out at the wreckage of old Port Royal, although what there was to see there on a moonless night—

‘Why aren’t you eating?’ He had turned and was frowning at her.

‘I ate before…before I left.’

‘Well, eat more, you are skin and bones.’ She opened her mouth. ‘That’s an order. Get over here, sit down and eat.’

‘This isn’t the navy,’ Clemence said, then bit her lip and did as she was told.

‘No, that is true enough.’ Stanier grinned, the first sign of any real amusement she had seen from him. It was not, now she came to think about it, a very warm smile. It exposed a set of excellent teeth and crinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes attractively enough, but the blue eyes were watchful. ‘What’s happened to sir?’

‘Sorry, sir.’ She slid on to the three-legged stool and tried to recall how her young male friends had behaved at table. Like a flock of gannets, mostly. ‘I haven’t got a knife, sir. Sorry.’

‘Have you got a handkerchief?’ Stanier enquired, then did smile, quite genuinely, when Clemence shook her head in puzzlement. With an effort she kept her mouth closed. When he smiled, he looked…She hauled some air down into her lungs and tried not to gawp like a complete looby. Thankfully he had his back to her, rummaging in one of the canvas kit bags piled in the corner of the cabin. He turned back, holding out a clasp knife and a spotted handkerchief. ‘There.’

‘Thank you.’ She tucked the handkerchief in the neck of her shirt as a bib and unfolded the knife, trying not to imagine sitting next to him at a dinner party, both of them in evening dress, flirting a little. And then walking out on to the terrace and perhaps flirting a little more…Which was ridiculous. She never flirted, she had never wanted to.

‘You should carry that knife all the time. Can you use it?’ Stanier speared a thick slice of boiled mutton, laid it on a slab of bread and attacked it with concentration.

‘On a man? Er…no.’ Clemence thought about Lewis. ‘But I probably could if I was frightened enough.’

‘Good,’ he said, swallowing and reaching for his ale. ‘Go on, eat.’

‘I thought I’d wait for you, sir. You’re hungry.’ He was eating like a man half-starved.

‘I am. First food for forty-eight hours.’ Stanier cut a wedge of cheese and pushed the rest towards her.

‘Why, sir?’ Clemence cut some and discovered that she could find a corner still to fill.

‘Pockets to let,’ he said frankly. ‘If this hadn’t come along, I’d have been forced to do an honest day’s work.’

‘Well, this certainly isn’t one,’ Clemence snapped before she could think.

‘Indeed?’ In the swaying lantern light the blue eyes were watchful over the rim of the horn beaker. ‘You’re very judgmental, young Clem.’

‘Pirates killed my father, took his ship.’ She ducked her head, tried to sound young and sullen. It wasn’t hard.

‘I see. And you ended up with Uncle who knocked you around, eh?’ He leaned across the table and put his fingers under her chin, tilting her face up so he could see the bruises. ‘Heard the expression about frying pans and fires, Clem?’

‘Yessir.’ She resisted the impulse to lean her aching face into his warm, calloused hand. It was only that she was tired and frightened and anxious and wanted someone to hold her, tell her it was all going to be all right. But of course it wasn’t going to be all right and this man was not the one to turn to for comfort, either. Something stirred inside her, the faint hope that there might be someone, somewhere, she could trust one day. She was getting tired—beyond tired—and maudlin. All she could rely on was herself.

Stanier seemed to have stopped eating, at last.

‘I’ll take these plates back.’

‘No, you won’t. You’re not wandering about this ship at night until you know your way around.’ He took the tray from her. ‘Look in that bag there, you’ll find sheets.’

It was a fussy pirate who carried his clean linen with him, Clemence thought, stumbling sleepily across to open the bag. But sure enough, clean sheets there were, even if they were threadbare and darned. She covered the lumpy paliasses, flapped another sheet over the top, rolled up blankets for pillows and then shut herself into the odorous little cubicle. If she did nothing else tomorrow, she was going to find a scrubbing brush and attack this.

But privacy, even smelly privacy, would perhaps save her. She couldn’t imagine how she would have survived otherwise in a ship full of men. Clemence managed to wedge open the porthole to let in the smell of the sea, then emerged. Water and washing would have to wait; all she wanted now was sleep and to wake up to find this had all been an unpleasant dream.

Could she get into bed, or would Stanier want her to do anything else? She was dithering when he came back in. ‘I am not, thank God,’ he remarked, ‘expected to stand watch tonight. Bed, young Clem.’ He regarded Clemence critically. ‘No soap, no toothbrush, no clean linen, either. I’ll have to see what we can find you in the morning. I don’t imagine going to bed unwashed and in his shirt ever troubled a boy, though.’

‘No, sir.’ Clemence thought longingly of her deep tub, of Castile soap and frangipani flowers floating in the cool water. Of a clean bed and deep pillows and smiling, soft-footed servants holding out a drifting nightgown of snowy lawn.

Stanier sat down on the edge of his bunk and shed his coat, then his waistcoat and began to unbutton his shirt. The air seemed to vanish from her lungs. He was going to strip off here and now and…He stood up and she bent to pull off her shoes as though someone had tugged a string.

She risked a peek up through her fringe. He was still standing there, she could see his feet. There wasn’t anything else she could take off while he was there…Belt. Yes, she could unbuckle that. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him heeling off his shoes. One foot vanished, he must have put it on the bunk to roll down his stocking. Yes. A bare foot appeared, the other vanished.

‘What are you doing, boy?’

‘Buckle’s tight,’ she mumbled.

‘Need any help?’

‘No!’ It came out as a strangled squawk. Thank goodness, he was going into the privy cupboard. As the door closed Clemence hauled off her trousers and dived under the sheet, yanking it up over her nose.

The door creaked. He was coming out. Clemence pulled the sheet up higher and pretended to be asleep. Drawn by some demon of curiosity, she opened her eyes a fraction and looked through her lashes. Stanier was stark naked, his breeches grasped in one hand. She bit her tongue as she stifled a gasp. He tossed the clothes on to a chair, then stood, running one hand through his hair, apparently deep in thought.

She should close her eyes, she knew that, but still she stared into the shifting shadows, mesmerised. Long legs, defined muscles, slim hips, flat stomach bisected by the arrow of hair running down from his chest. Clemence’s eyes followed it, down to the impressively unequivocal evidence that she was sharing a cabin with a man. She had known that, she told herself. Of course she had. It was just seeing him like this, so close, so male, made it very difficult to breathe.

It was not as though she was ignorant, either. She had swum with her childhood playmates in the pools below the waterfalls, but this was no pre-pubescent boy. In a slave-owning society you saw naked adults, too, but you averted your eyes from the humiliating treatment of another human being. She shouldn’t be staring now, but Stanier seemed so comfortable with his own body, so relaxed in his nudity, that she doubted he would dive for his breeches if he realised she was awake. Only, he did not know she was a woman, of course.

‘Asleep, boy?’ he asked softly.

Clemence screwed her eyes shut, mumbled and turned over, hunching her shoulders. Behind, she heard his amused chuckle. ‘You’d better not snore.’

Nathan eyed the bunk. The lad had made it up tidily enough, but sleep did not beckon. In fact, he felt uncomfortably awake, which was a damnable nuisance, given that he was going to need to be alert and on his guard at daybreak to take Sea Scorpion out of harbour and on to whatever course McTiernan wanted. Knowing the man’s reputation, he would set something tricky, as a test.

He found the thick notebook in his old leather satchel and climbed into bed with it. From the opposite bunk came the sound of soft breathing. And what the hell was he doing, acquiring someone else to take care of when he had his own skin to worry about?

Nathan set himself to study the notes he had made on the area a hundred miles around Jamaica. He had not been bragging when he had told McTiernan that he was the best navigator in these waters: he probably was. In theory.

He did not underestimate his own strengths, his depth of knowledge, his experience in most of the great oceans of the world. The problem was, the Caribbean was not one of them and he knew that two months spent weaving through their treacherous waters making endless notes was not enough. Not nearly enough. At which point he became aware of the nagging heaviness in his groin and finally realised just why he was so restless.

What the hell was that about? And why? He had more than enough on his mind to drive any thought of women from it, and in any case, he’d hardly seen a female all evening, so there should be no inconvenient image in the back of his mind to surface and tease him.

The flash of dark eyes and black hair, the remembered lush curves of his late wife, presented themselves irresistibly to his mind. Nathan shifted impatiently. He thought he had learned not to think about Julietta; besides, lust was no longer the emotion those thoughts brought with them.

The recollection of Clem’s slim, ink-stained fingers gripping his thigh rose up to replace that of Julietta’s hands caressing down his body. Nathan shifted abruptly in the bed in reflexive rejection. For God’s sake! He was as bad as this crew, if that was the cause of his discomfort.

From across the cabin came an odd sound—Clem was grinding his teeth in his sleep. Nathan grinned, contemplating hefting a shoe at the sleeping boy. No, he could acquit himself of that particular inclination—it must simply be an odd reaction to finding himself in the most dangerous situation in all his thirty years. The thought of straightforward danger was somehow soothing. Nathan put the book under his pillow, extinguished the lantern and fell asleep.

Chapter Three

‘Wake up!’

Clemence blinked into the gloom of the cabin, momentarily confused. Where…? Memory came back like a blow and she scrabbled at the sheet twisted around her legs. It was, thankfully, still covering her from the waist down and her shirt shrouded the rest of her.

Stanier was tucking his shirt into his breeches. She felt the colour flood up into her face at the memory of last night, then found herself watching as his bare chest vanished as he did up the buttons, long brown fingers dextrous despite his speed. As if she was not in enough trouble without finding herself physically drawn to the man! She had never felt that before, but then she had never been rescued by a tough, attractive man before either, which probably accounted for it. Whatever the explanation, it was not a comfortable sensation. Surprising areas of her insides seemed to be involved in the reaction.

‘Come on, look lively!’ So, now she had to get out of bed, find her breeches and get into the cubby hole, all under Stanier’s, admittedly uninterested, gaze. She tugged at the shirt, which came to just above her knees, slid out from under the sheet, scooped up her trousers and edged round the table.

‘You are far too thin.’

She whisked into the cupboard and shut the door. Enough light came through the porthole to see the bucket, but of course, there was still no water to wash in. ‘Things were difficult since my father died,’ she said through the thin panels, fumbling with the fastenings on her trousers and tightening her belt. Thinking about her father, she felt reality hit her. Pirates had taken Raven Duchess, killing her father as surely as if they had knifed him, and now here she was, not only in their hands, but feeling grateful to a man who was as good as one himself. She’d had some excuse last night, she had hardly been herself. Now, after a night’s sleep, she should face reality.

He was a pirate. She had seen him accept the position with her own eyes, heard him state his terms to McTiernan. So he was just as bad as the rest of the crew and deserved a fate as severe as theirs should be. Clemence opened the door and stepped out, jaw set.

‘I’m sorry about your father.’ Stanier was coatless, a long jerkin, not unlike her own waistcoat, pulled on over his shirt. ‘Do you know which ship it was that attacked his?’

Clemence shrugged, combing her hair into some sort of order with her fingers. They had never discovered who had been responsible. The one survivor, found clinging to a spar, was too far gone to communicate, even if his tongue had not been cut out.

Her face felt greasy, she was sticky and sweaty under the linen bindings around her chest and there was grit between her toes. ‘Could have been this one for all I know,’ she said, having no trouble sounding like a sulky boy.

‘I hope not,’ Stanier said.

‘Why should you care? You’re one of them,’ she pointed out, too angry with him and his casual sympathy to be cautious.

‘True.’ She had expected anger in return, even a cuff for her insolence, but he looked merely thoughtful. ‘There are degrees of piracy.’

‘Like degrees of murder?’ Clemence retorted. ‘Anyway, you’ve chosen to sail with the absolute scum of the seas, so that makes it first-degree piracy.’

‘You’re outspoken, lad.’ Stanier came round the table and took her chin in one hand, tipping up her face so he could study it. ‘I wonder you dare.’

‘I don’t care if you are angry. Things can’t get much worse.’

‘Oh, they can, believe me,’ Stanier said softly, tilting her head, his fingers hard on her jawbone. ‘Is that eye paining you much?’

‘Only when someone hits it,’ Clemence said, contemplating struggling, then deciding it was certain to be futile. He was too close, far too close for comfort. She could smell him, his sweat. Not the rank odour of the habitually unwashed crew, but the curiously arousing scent of a man who was usually clean, but was now hot and musky from bed. Goosebumps ran up her spine.

‘Well, if you want to avoid that, you can go and find me some coffee and bread.’ Did he really mean it? Would he hit her if she displeased him? Of course he would, he thought her just a troublesome boy and boys were always getting beaten. ‘Then bring it up on deck. It’ll be dawn soon.’ He picked up a telescope from the bunk and fitted it into a long pocket in his jerkin, then dropped a watch into another. ‘Here, take this and remember what I said about staying out of trouble.’

Clemence caught the clasp knife that was tossed to her, fumbling the catch. Stanier frowned, his gaze sharpening. ‘It’s this eye,’ she said defensively, recalling her playmates’ jibes that she caught like a girl. ‘I can’t see out of it properly.’ Then he was gone and she could hold on to the end of the table, ridiculously shaken.

Toughen up, she told herself fiercely. Think like a boy. Which was easier said than done, given that all her treacherous feminine instincts were telling her quite the opposite whenever Stanier was close. The knife fastened to her belt, she made her way to the galley. Instinctively, she kept her head down, trying to make herself as small and inconspicuous as possible, until she found she was being stared at curiously. Perhaps looking like a victim was not a good idea in the middle of this crew, used to preying on the weak.

Clemence arrived at the galley, head up, shoulders back, practising a swagger. She conjured up Georgy Phillips, the leader of her gang of childhood male friends. He would love this adventure. He was welcome to it.

‘Mr Street? I’ve come for Mr Stanier’s coffee. And something to eat.’ There was bacon frying, she could smell it. ‘Some bacon.’

‘That’s for the captain.’ But the cook said it amiably enough, slopping a black liquid that might have been coffee into a mug.

‘But there’s lots of it. And Mr Stanier’s to have what he wants, the captain said so.’ Street was hardly likely to check, and it seemed that Stanier had got what he’d demanded as a price to sail with them.

‘Did he now?’ Street shoved a piece of plank with bread on it towards her. There wouldn’t be any of that once they were at sea and the land-bought supplies went stale. ‘Go on, then. You want some coffee, too, boy?’

‘Please, sir.’ Clemence was pretty certain that the cook didn’t warrant a sir, but a bit of crawling did no harm. She carved off four thick slices of bread and slipped round behind the man to layer bacon between them, dribbling on the rich melted fat for good measure. Street let her take a pewter plate, then watched, a gaptoothed grin on his face, as she juggled two mugs of coffee and the food.

‘Don’t drop it, boy, you’ll not wheedle any more out of me,’ he warned.

‘Nossir, thank you, sir.’ Now she had to find her way on deck, up at least two companionways, with her hands full. At least they were still at anchor; she would soon have to do this sort of thing with the ship pitching and tossing.

She made it with the loss of half a mug of coffee when one hand made a grab for the food as she passed him and she had to duck and run. Muttering, she regarded her coffee-stained trousers with resignation, and climbed out of the hatch on to deck.

It was a scene of apparent chaos, but she had seen enough ships preparing to make sail to know this all had a purpose. The light was waxing now, she could see the length of the deck and the lamps were extinguished. With the plate clutched protectively close to her chest, Clemence negotiated the steep steps up to the poop deck and found Stanier deep in conversation with the tall, oddly neat man with the pale blue eyes. The one who had hit her. Mr Cutler, the first mate.

They had a chart spread out on the raised hatch cover of the stern cabin and were studying it. As Clemence came up behind them, Stanier straightened. ‘I agree, that’s the best course if you aren’t concerned about speed.’

‘Are you suggesting there’s a faster way?’

Stanier extended one finger and indicated something Clemence could not see. The sight of that long digit, the one that had traced a question down her bruised cheek, made her shift uncomfortably.

‘That’s a dangerous passage, too big a risk.’ Cutler shook his head.

‘Not if you hit it at just the right time.’ Stanier began to roll up the chart. ‘How much speed do you need? Are you chasing something or just patrolling?’

‘Best pickings have got over twelve hours’ start on us, there’s no catching the Raven Princess now.’ Clemence almost dropped the food. ‘But if you’ve got the knack of that passage, then the captain will be glad to see it.’

‘That’s what I thought. And it brings you out in the shelter of Lizard Island. You’ve got good anchorage, fresh water and command of the shipping lanes through there. And you never know, Raven Princess might have been delayed. Too good not to check, I’d have thought.’

Bastard! ‘Your coffee, Mr Stanier.’ She thrust the mug into his hand, forcing him to grasp the heated metal, and was gratified by his wince as he snatched at the handle. He deserved it. That was her ship he was talking about capturing. ‘And some bread and bacon. Sir.’

He looked at her narrowly over the rim of the mug as he blew on his coffee. ‘That all for me?’

‘Yessir.’

‘Take your knife and cut it up. Take half and eat it.’

‘You’ll spoil the brat.’ The mate’s lip lifted in a sneer.

‘He’s half-starved and no use to me unless he’s fit.’ Stanier gave a dismissive, one-shouldered shrug. ‘Clem, eat and then go and get that cabin shipshape. You can unpack everything, just don’t drop the instruments.’

Clemence found a corner on the main deck and curled up with her breakfast on top of a low stack of barrels, safely out of the way of the hurrying hands. Just when she had started liking the man, he turned out to be as bad as the rest of them. She shook her head abruptly; it was a lesson not to trust any of them. Ever.

Despite her feelings, she could still enjoy the food. The bacon was good, still warm, savoury, the bread soaked with salty grease. She scrubbed the back of her hand across her mouth, then wiped her palms on her trousers without thinking. The resulting mess—smears of ink, coffee, grease and dust—was unpleasant, but she could hardly change her clothes.

Street was surprisingly helpful when she returned her crocks. ‘Ship’s sail-maker’s over there. Doubles as tailor, for them as wants it.’ He nodded towards a man sitting cross-legged on a pile of rolled hammocks. ‘Hey, Gerritty! Navigator’s boy needs slops.’

The tailor squinted at Clemence. ‘Look in that chest, see what’ll fit,’ he said through a mouthful of big needles, his accent a thick Irish brogue. ‘I’m not making you anything, mind, not wasting my time on boys.’

‘Thank you.’ The trunk held a motley collection, some of it quality, some of it sailors’ gear. Clemence had the uncomfortable feeling that most of it had been taken from captives. She found two pairs of trousers that looked as though she could take them in to fit, some shirts, a jacket and a warm knitted tunic. ‘May I take these?’

‘Aye.’ The sail-maker produced an evil-looking knife and cut some twine. ‘He any good, this new navigator?’

Clemence shrugged. ‘Don’t know. He only took me on yesterday. Talks like he is.’ The Irishman snorted at her tone. ‘Where can I get a bucket and a scrubbing brush?’

She wasn’t looking forward to tackling the privy cupboard, but she wasn’t prepared to live with it either. She was uncomfortably aware that if life had not favoured her with the wealth to keep servants, then she would have made a very reluctant housekeeper, but some hard cleaning was preferable to squalor, any day of the week.

It took her half an hour to locate cleaning materials, dodging some rough teasing on the way. On her way down to the cabin she collected a second lantern by the simple expedient of stealing it from another cabin, then started by washing the portholes and cleaning the lamps. She made the beds, glancing with interest at the thick leather-bound notebook under Stanier’s pillow, but cautiously left it untouched, unpacked his bags and set the instruments out on the table with care.

They were shiny, complex and obviously expensive. She raised the fiddles around the sides of the table in case the instruments slid about and eyed them, fascinated. Perhaps he would show her how they worked.

The rest of his gear she stowed in the lockers. It was good quality stuff, but well worn and included, she was thankful to see, a huswif with thread and needles. At least she could alter her new clothes herself.

And that just left the privy. Clemence had an idea how to deal with that.

They were out of harbour, the island receding behind them, the breeze stiff and steady, the sun on the waves, dazzling. It was a day when it felt good to be at sea, even without the relief of having piloted the ship out under the hypercritical gaze of Cutler and Captain McTiernan, who lounged with deceptive casualness against a raised hatch cover.

‘What’s going on down there?’ Cutler craned to see where a group were clustered round the rail, peering at something in the sea. Laughter floated up.

‘I’ll take a look.’ Nathan stretched, glad of an excuse to shake the tension out of his shoulders. ‘I need to get my sextant, anyway.’

He assessed the mood of the group as he approached it. They were having fun, probably at someone’s expense, but it was good humoured enough. ‘What’s up?’ He shouldered his way to the rail, the hands dropping back, tugging forelocks when they saw who it was. McTiernan’s crew were worryingly well disciplined.

Hell. ‘Clem, what the devil are you doing?’ The boy leant over the rail, a rope in his hands, the muscles on his slim forearms standing out with the effort. His trousers were filthy, he had bound the handkerchief Nathan had given him around his forehead and he looked a complete urchin with smudges on his face and grime up his arms.

Except that there was an elegance about the line of his back, the arched feet, braced on the deck, were small, the backside exposed by the shirt riding up was rounded and the skin below his collar was unexpectedly delicate.

Blinking away a sudden sensation of complete confusion, Nathan snapped, ‘Clem!’

‘Sorry, sir.’ He was hauling at whatever it was now and it rose up suddenly, landed on the deck and showered them all with water. ‘That bucket, sir. Seemed the easiest way to clean it.’

It was, certainly, a very clean bucket. Angry, for no reason he could determine, Nathan narrowed his eyes at the flushed, bruised face that met his gaze with a look of eager willingness that was surely false. Nathan had dealt with dumb insolence often enough to recognise it now.

‘Look at the state of you, boy. I’ll not have a servant that looks like a swine-herd.’

‘I’ll go and change, sir.’

The boy was angry, he realised with a jolt. Angry with him. Was he still brooding on Nathan’s role on a pirate ship? Well, he was going to have to accept it, pretty damned quickly.

‘Go,’ he said with a jerk of his head, not realising until Clem and the bucket had vanished that the boy had nothing to change into. But that was not his problem—navigating this ship to place it in the best possible position for some fat merchantman to sail right into its jaws was. That was his job.

When he came down to the cabin over an hour later he was hit by light, air and the tang of salt water and lye soap. The cabin was spotless, the inner door standing open on to what had been a fetid little cubby hole and was now clean and dimly lit with the light from the open porthole.

A water tub stood on the floor, his mirror and shaving tackle were on the shelf, a towel dangled from a nail and a cloth was draped decorously over the bucket.

Clem was sitting at the table with a large bodkin, some twine and a pile of newspapers. ‘What are you doing now?’ Nathan demanded.

In response, Clem lifted his hand. Neat squares of newspaper were threaded onto the twine. ‘For the privy,’ he said concisely. ‘I found the newspaper by the galley range.’

‘My God.’ Nathan stared round a cabin that would have done a post captain proud. ‘You’ll make someone a wonderful wife, Clem.’

As soon as he said it he could have bitten his tongue out. The boy went scarlet, his expression horrified. ‘Damn it, I was teasing, I don’t mean…I don’t mean what I was warning you about last night. The other men, if they see this, will just think you’re a good servant.’

‘Well, I did it for me, too,’ Clem retorted. ‘I’ve got to live here as well. I don’t enjoy cleaning,’ he added with a grimace.

‘No. And you aren’t used to it, either, are you?’ Nathan spun a chair round and straddled it, arms along the back as he studied the flushed and indignant face opposite him. ‘When you are angry, that lilting local accent vanishes completely. You’ve been educated, haven’t you, Clem? You’re from quite a respectable family.’

‘I—’ There was no point in lying about it. Clemence bent her head, letting her hair fall over her face, and mumbled, ‘Yes. I went to school in Spanish Town. My father was a merchant, just in a small way.’

‘So the loss of your ship was a blow? Financially, I mean?’

She nodded, her mind working frantically to sort out a story that was as close to the truth as she could make it. Fewer risks of slipping up later, that way. ‘My uncle took everything that was left. He claims he’s looking after it, as my guardian.’ Indignation made her voice shake. ‘I didn’t feel safe any more, so I got a berth on the Raven Princess, in secret. Only she sailed early.’

‘Couldn’t you have gone to the Governor?’ Stanier asked.

‘The Governor?You have no idea, have you? No idea at all what it’s like being a—’ She stopped, appalled at what she had almost said.

‘A what, Clem?’ He was watching her like a hawk, she realised, risking a glance up through the fringe of ragged hair.

‘A small merchant’s son. Someone with no influence. Sir,’ she added, somewhat belatedly.

‘I think we can drop the sir, in here at least. My name is Nathan.’ Clemence nodded, not trusting herself to speak yet, not after that near-disaster. ‘So, we know about you now. What do you make of me, Clem?’

Make of him? What should she say? That he was probably the most disturbingly male creature she had ever come across? That she probably owed him her life, but that she could not trust him one inch? That she admired his style, but despised his morals?

‘I think,’ she said slowly, returning with care to her island lilt, ‘that you are a gentleman and I know that you were once in the navy, if what McTiernan said yesterday evening in the tavern is true. And it would seem to fit with your character.’

The unthinking natural arrogance of command, for one thing. But she couldn’t put it like that. ‘You are used to giving orders, your kit is very good quality, even if it is quite worn. There’s a broad arrow stamped on some of the instrument cases, so they were government issue once.’

Stanier—Nathan—nodded. ‘You’re right, Clem.’ Something inside her warmed at the praise, despite the pride that was telling her she wanted nothing from him, least of all his good opinion. ‘Yes, I’m the younger son of a gentleman and, yes, I was in the navy.’

‘What happened?’ Intrigued now, she shook back her hair and sat up straighter, watching his face. Something shadowed, dark, moved behind those blue eyes and the lines at the corners of his mouth tightened.

‘I was given the opportunity to resign.’

‘Oh.’ There really wasn’t any tactful way of asking. ‘Why?’

‘A little private enterprise here, a little bloodyminded insubordination there, a duel.’

‘A duel?’ Clemence stared. ‘I thought naval officers weren’t allowed to duel.’

‘Correct.’ Nathan’s mouth twisted into a wry smile, but the bleakness behind his eyes spoke of complex emotion.

‘Did you kill him?’

He shook his head and she felt unaccountably relieved. ‘No, I did not.’ It would be a horrible thing to have to live with—but why should she worry about the spiritual health of a King’s officer turned pirate?

‘Then what happened?’

‘You can imagine how well that went down with my family. It was felt that my absence would be the best way of dealing with the situation. So I found employment here and there, legal and perhaps not quite so legal, and ended up in Kingston with no ship and no money.’

‘Why are you telling me all this?’ she asked. Instinct told her that Nathan Stanier was a proud, private man. He could not be enjoying sharing the details of his disgrace and penury with a scrubby youth rescued from the dockside.

‘They say that a man has no secrets from his valet, and you are the nearest to one of those I’m likely to have for a while. You might as well know the worst about me from the outset.’ He got up in a smooth movement that seemed to mask barely controlled emotion. Shame? she wondered. Or just anger at the situation he found himself in?

She could feel herself slipping closer and closer to letting her guard down with him and that, she knew, could be fatal. ‘But I knew the worst about you already,’ she pointed out, hauling herself back from the brink of blurting out who, and what, she was, casting herself onto that broad chest and giving up fighting. ‘I knew you have taken McTiernan’s money and that makes you a pirate. I really can’t think of anything worse. Can you?’

Chapter Four

Nathan spun round on his heel and stared at her. ‘For a bright lad, you’ve a reckless tongue,’ he remarked, his voice mild. His eyes, bleak, belied his tone utterly. ‘Yes, I can think of worse things. Betrayal and treachery for two.’ Then he laughed, sending a shiver down her spine. ‘But you’re right, they don’t get much worse than this crew, I suspect, and now we’re part of it.’

‘Well, I didn’t volunteer,’ Clemence said bitterly.

‘No, and I didn’t save your ungrateful skin from that pack of jackals in order to get self-righteous lectures from you either, brat. So keep your lip buttoned, Clem, or I’ll tan your breeches for you.’

She subsided, instantly. Let him think she was terrified of a beating; better that than have him lay hands on her. The vision of herself turned over Nathan Stanier’s knee and that broad palm descending on her upturned buttocks made her go hot and cold all over. There was no way, surely, that he could fail to notice that she was a girl if that happened.

‘I’ll go and get our dinner, shall I?’ she offered, by way of a flag of truce.

‘I’m eating with the captain and Cutler.’ Nathan was shrugging into his coat. Old naval respect for a captain must be engrained, Clemence thought dourly, if he felt he had to tidy himself up for that scum.

‘Will they tell you where we are going?’ she asked. If they docked at a harbour on one of the other islands, surely she could slip ashore?

‘Hunting,’ Nathan said. ‘And not from a harbour, if that’s what you are hoping for. McTiernan’s got a hideaway, and I can show him a shortcut to get to it. Now, enough questions. Are you going to eat properly, if I’m not there to nag you?’

Disarmed by his concern, she smiled. Life was so complicated. It would be much easier if it was black and white, if he was an out-and-out villain, but he wasn’t and liking, gratitude and the disconcerting tingle of desire kept undermining her certainty. ‘Yes, I promise. I’m hungry after all that work.’ Nathan was staring at her. ‘What is it?’

‘That bruise is getting worse,’ he said abruptly. ‘It looks…odd. You’re all right otherwise? You’re not seasick?’

‘In this weather? No. I don’t know what I would be like in a storm, though. My father used to take me on short sea journeys with him. The crews were very good, they’d let me go anywhere, even though I was a—a child,’ she finished hastily.

The moment he was gone, she went to look at her reflection in his shaving mirror. Yes, her face was black, blue and purple on one side and still swollen. Her hair was lank and she plucked at it, wondering whether to wash it. It was horrible like this, but on the other hand it helped her disguise, and that was the most important thing. Clemence fished the bandana out of her back pocket and tied it round her forehead again, pulling it one way, then another for effect.

Then the irony of it struck her. Here she was, prinking and posing in front of a mirror, trying to make herself look as unfeminine and unattractive as possible, when all the time she should be on her way to England, to her aunt Amelia the Duchess of Allington, stepmother to the present duke, who was to give her some town bronze before her come-out next Season. They’d have the letter by now, telling them of her father’s death, of her own ill health.

She should be in the luxury of her own cabin on a large merchantman, practising flirting with the officers and worrying that she did not have pretty enough gowns in her luggage.

A proper young lady in this situation should be in a state of collapse, not scrubbing out privies, swaggering about with a knife and sharing a cabin with an attractive, dangerous, good-for-nothing rogue. Depressingly, this proved she was not a proper young lady. On the other hand, if she was, she would still be in the Naismiths’ power. Better to be a skinny tomboy and alive.

Clemence gave the bandana one last tweak and headed for the galley, her stomach rumbling with genuine hunger as it had not done for weeks.

Street was ladling an unpleasant-looking grey slop into four buckets. Clemence wrinkled her nose, hung back and hoped this was not dinner.

‘There, that’ll do for ’em.’ The cook gestured to the two hands who were waiting. ‘They got water?’

‘Enough,’ one of the men said, spitting on the deck close to Clemence’s feet. ‘Waste of space, the lot of them. Not worth nothing.’

‘If the captain says keep ’em, we keep ’em,’ Street said, his voice a warning growl. ‘He’s got his reasons. You check the water and let me know if they’re sickening. I’m not taking a lashing for you if you let any of them die.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ the man grumbled, hefting a couple of buckets and shuffling off, followed by his mate.

‘Mr Street?’ Clemence ventured. ‘I’ve come for my dinner, sir.’ The cook waved a bloodstained hand towards a rather more savoury-looking cauldron of stew. He seemed out of temper, but not with her, so she ventured, ‘Are there prisoners on board?’

‘None of your business, lad.’ He swung round to glower at her. ‘You keep your nose out of things that don’t concern you if you want to keep a whole hide. And don’t go down to the orlop deck, either. You hear?’

‘Yes, Mr Street.’ The orlop deck? Why mention that? It was the very lowest deck, below the waterline where the cables were stowed. There would be no cabins down there, just dark holds with bilge water, rats and darkness; it would never have occurred to her to visit it. The cook went back to wielding his meat cleaver on a leg of pork, so she took bread to sop up the stew, poured some of the thin ale into a tankard and retreated to her refuge on top of the barrels.

The stew was better than she had expected and her appetite sharper, but Clemence spooned the gravy into her mouth absently, her eyes unfocused on the expanse of blue stretching out to the horizon. If there were captives down on the orlop deck, then they would be common seamen, she assumed, otherwise, if they had any value, they would be up in a proper cabin being kept alive with some care.

And if they were seamen, then some of them might be men from Raven Duchess. She stared down at the planking, scrubbed white by constant holystoning, the tar bubbling between the joints in the heat. Somewhere down there below, in foul darkness, could be men in her employ, men who’d been kept prisoner for six months. Men she was responsible for.

‘Then lay in the course you suggest through the channel, Mr Stanier. We’ll take it at first light.’ It was Captain McTiernan, Nathan at his side, Cutler behind them. All three men had their hands clasped behind their backs, just as she had seen her father pacing with his captains. It seemed impossible that pirates would behave in the same everyday way, but the more she saw, the more she realised they were not bogeymen out of a children’s storybook, they were real men operating in the real world. Their work just happened to be evil.

Instinct made her wriggle down amongst the barrels as though she could hide in some crevice, then common sense stopped her. It was not safe to cringe and cower; if McTiernan saw her, he might assume she was spying on him. As they drew level she wiped her crust round the tin plate and drained her tankard with an appearance of nonchalance, despite the fact that her heart was thudding against her ribs.

McTiernan stopped, bracketed by the two men, and looked at her. Clemence stared back, trying, without much difficulty, to look suitably nervous and humble. His eyes were flat, without emotion, staring at her as though she was no more, nor less, than one of the casks. Her eyes shifted to the left. Cutler was more obviously assessing—now she knew what a lamb in the slaughterman’s yard felt like. She shivered and glanced at Nathan, trying to read the message in the deep blue gaze. Warning or reassurance?

McTiernan blinked, slowly, and she half-expected to see an inner eyelid slide back into place like the lizards that scuttled up every wall in Raven’s Hold. Then, without speaking, he turned. Clemence felt the breath whoosh out of her lungs just as there was a shout from above.

Everyone looked up. Something was falling. Wedged between the barrels, Clemence tried to wriggle away, then the tail of her shirt caught, jerking her back. She felt a sharp blow to her head and the world erupted into stars.

Minutes passed, or hours. Her head hurt. She was on her back on the deck and above her she could see the captain, staring upwards towards the mast-tops that seemed to circle dizzyingly with the ship’s motion. Then someone bent over her. Nathan. The sick tension inside her relaxed; it was all right now. He was here.

‘Lie still.’ His hand pressed down on her shoulder and she lay back, closing her eyes. Her head hurt abominably, but the warm touch meant she was safe, she reasoned with what parts of her brain still seemed to be working. Something else, her common sense presumably, jabbed her. Nothing was all right, least of all the way she was feeling about this renegade officer.

‘Is he dead?’ Cutler. If I’m dead, he’ll eat me. The words whispered in her mind; she was beginning to drift in and out of consciousness.

‘No, just stunned. I’ll take him below.’

‘Flog the bastard.’ It was McTiernan, his voice flat calm.

But I haven’t done anything, she wanted to shout. It wasn’t my fault! She shifted, trying to wriggle away, but Nathan’s hand curled round and held her.

‘Steady, Clem. He’s angry with the hand who dropped the fid.’ So that was what it was. Her memory produced the image of a heavy wooden spike. Point down it would have killed her.

‘Because it hit me?’ she murmured. McTiernan was this angry because a cabin boy had been hit on the head?

‘No.’ Her eyes opened as he knelt, slid one arm under her knees, the other under her back. ‘Because it almost hit him.’

Nathan straightened with her in his arms. The world lurched, steadied, to reveal a man on the deck, cowering.

‘Fifty. Now.’ McTiernan turned on his heel and walked away, leaving the man screaming after him.

‘All hands for punishment!’ Cutler roared, making her start and try to burrow against the security of Nathan’s hard chest.

‘I’m taking the lad down,’ he said. ‘You don’t need me for this and he’s no use to me unconscious. I need to check his head.’

Fifty? Fifty lashes? ‘That will kill him,’ Clemence managed to say. Her view, mercifully, was confined to the open neck of Nathan’s shirt, the hollow at the base of his throat, the underside of his jaw. She made herself focus on the satiny texture of the skin, the few freckles, the pucker of a small scar, the way his Adam’s apple moved when he swallowed.

‘Oh, yes, it most certainly will. Close your eyes, lie still, I’ve got you.’

Oh, God. He had got her, oh, yes, indeed. The realisation of her danger thudded through her throbbing headache seconds after Clemence let her head sink gratefully on to his shoulder.

She was closer than she had ever been to Nathan and his hands seemed to be in the places that were most dangerous—the curve of her hip, her tightly strapped ribcage. She couldn’t see what had happened to the hem of her long shirt that she had been using to disguise the fact that there were no bulges in her trousers where a boy ought to bulge.

‘I’m all right, you can put me down.’ She was ignored. Of course, Nathan Stanier took no orders from scrubby boys. He would have to set her on her feet when they got to the companionway though, she reasoned, praying he was not intending to undress her to tuck her up in bed.

But it seemed that Nathan had thought out the logistics of descending steep stairs on a pitching ship with his arms full. He swung her round and hung her over his shoulder, one arm tight around the back of her thighs as he climbed down. ‘Sorry if this jars your head, but we’ll be down in a minute.’ And they were and she was back in his arms almost shaking with the jumble of sensations, fears, emotions that were rattling round her poor aching head.

‘There.’ He put her down. Clemence opened her eyes and saw they were in their cabin. This was her bunk, thank goodness. She’d say she wanted to sleep…

But she wasn’t safe, not yet. Nathan knelt in front of her, overwhelmingly big on the confined space, and tipped her forward against his chest so he could part her hair and look at her scalp.

‘Skin isn’t broken, but you’ll have a nasty lump.’ He didn’t seem ready to release her, one hand flat on her back, holding her close, the other running gently through her hair, checking for lumps. Clemence let her forehead rest against his shoulder. Madness. Bliss. All her senses were full of him, his heat, the feel of him, the scent of him, the aura of strength that seemed to flow from him. She could stay like this all day. Safe. She began to drift.

‘Clem?’ Nathan’s voice was puzzled. ‘Why the devil are you trussed up like the Christmas goose?’

‘Cracked ribs,’ she said on a gulp, back in the real world with a vengeance. ‘When my uncle hit me. I, er…fell against a table.’

‘Rubbish. You’d have yelled the place down just now when I slung you over my shoulder if you’d got cracked ribs.’ He slid his hands free and sat back on his heels beside the bunk. Clemence closed her eyes as though that could hide her. She wanted so much to believe he would protect her when he knew her secret, wanted so much, in the midst of this nightmare, to believe there was good in this flawed man. ‘Clem, take your shirt off.’

‘No.’ She opened her eyes and met his, read the questions in them.

‘Why not?’

There was nowhere to go, no lie she could think of, no escape. Eyes locked with his, braced for his reaction, Clemence said, ‘Because I’m a girl.’ And waited.

Silence, then, ‘Well, thank God for that,’ Nathan said.

‘What?’ She sat bolt upright, then clutched her head as the cabin swam around her. ‘What do you mean, thank God?’

Nathan was looking at her with all the usual composure wiped off his face. He seemed a good five years’ younger, grinning with what had to be relief. ‘Because my body was telling me there was a woman around,’ he confessed, running a hand through his hair. ‘I kept finding myself staring at you, but I didn’t know why. The relief of finding that my dissipated way of life hasn’t left me lusting after cabin boys is considerable, believe me. What’s your real name?’

‘Clemence.’ The release of tension on finding that he had not become a slavering monster bent on rapine turned into temper. It was that, or tears. ‘And the relief might be considerable for you, but now I am sharing a cabin with a man who knows I am a woman and whose body is most certainly interested in that fact—a piece of information I could well do without, believe me! Forgive me, but I was much happier when you were simply confused and uncomfortable.’

‘So, you think I am more likely to ravish Clemence than Clem, do you?’ He rocked back on his heels and stood up, hands on hips, looking down at her.

She had made him angry again. Clemence lay down cautiously, too dizzy to stay sitting up. ‘No, I don’t think that. My cousin was going to force me every night until he got me with child and I had to agree to marry him. I may not know you, but I do understand that you don’t treat people like that. But this…’ she waved a hand around the confines of the cabin, the closeness of him, the privy cupboard ‘…this is not very comfortable. Not for a woman alone with a man she doesn’t know.’

You wouldn’t mistreat people you know as individuals, that is, she qualified to herself. Putting a pirate ship in the way of capturing and plundering merchant vessels and killing their crews, that was another matter. You couldn’t tell that sort of thing about people just by looking at them, it seemed.

‘My God.’ He sat down on the nearest chair. ‘No wonder you ran away. Which of them hit you?’

‘My uncle. Why?’

‘For future reference,’ Nathan said grimly. ‘This cousin of yours—he didn’t—’

‘No. I’m too scrawny to interest him at the moment. He was going to fatten me up.’ Nathan’s growl sent a shiver of pleasure down her spine at the thought of Lewis walking into the cabin and coming up against that formidable pair of fists. ‘Are you going to tell anyone about me?’

‘Hell, no! If you were in danger when they thought you a boy, you wouldn’t be safe for one minute if they knew you are a woman.’ He pulled out a chair and sat down out of reach of her, whether for his peace of mind or hers, she couldn’t tell. ‘How old are you?’

‘Nineteen. Twenty in two months’ time.’

Nathan’s eyebrows went up and he raked one longfingered hand back through his hair again, reducing it to a boyish tangle. Clemence resisted the urge to get up and comb it straight. ‘This gets worse and worse.’

‘Why?’

‘Why? I thought you were fourteen, a child. Now I know you’re not—’ He stopped, frowning. ‘We need to think about the practicalities of this.’

‘There aren’t any, not really.’ Clemence sat up against the hard bulkhead with some caution. ‘There’s the closet, thank goodness, and now you know who I am I can just ask for privacy when I need it.’

‘When are your courses due?’ he asked, in such a matter-of-fact manner that she answered him before she had time to be embarrassed.

‘Three weeks.’ Goodness, she hadn’t thought of that.

‘Good.’ Nathan was pretending to pay careful attention to a knot-hole in the table. ‘You are doing very well with the way you move. I guess you know some young lads?’

‘I used to run wild with them until I was fourteen,’ she confessed. ‘What is that noise?’ There were no live pigs on board, surely?

‘A man screaming,’ Nathan said, getting up and slamming both portholes shut. ‘Try not to listen.’

‘It’s him, isn’t it? The man who dropped the fid.’ Suddenly it was all too much. Somehow she had managed to endure Uncle Joshua’s threats, Cousin Lewis’s plans for her. She had acted with determination and escaped, stolen a horse without a qualm, kept her head when McTiernan and his men had seized her, coped with two days on a pirate ship and now…

Clemence dragged her sleeve across her eyes and sniffed, trying to hold back the tears.

‘Stop it, crying isn’t going to help him,’ Nathan said abruptly.

‘They are killing him by inches, torturing him,’ she retorted. ‘Can’t you do anything?’

‘No.’

She half-turned, hunching her shoulder towards him. Of course he was right, there was nothing to be done. It was just that she expected him to work miracles. Oh, damn! Why had he discovered she was female? It weakened her; she was turning to him for help he couldn’t give and which she shouldn’t expect. The moment she’d decided to escape from Raven’s Hold she had taken her own destiny into her hands, however feeble they might prove to be, and now she was reacting like Miss Clemence Ravenhurst, sheltered young lady.

‘Clem. Clemence.’ She shook her head, fighting to try to regain her composure and her independence. ‘Oh, come here.’ Nathan sat down on the bunk and pulled her rigidly resisting body into his arms. He pressed her unbruised cheek against his chest, muffling her ear into his shirt, and held his palm to the other side of her head so that all she could hear was his heartbeat, the sound of his breathing and the turmoil of her own thoughts.

‘Clemence,’ he repeated, his voice a rumble in her ear. ‘That’s an unusual name. But I’ve heard it before, not all that long ago, either. Can’t think where, though.’

‘You’ve had a few other things on your mind,’ she suggested, trying to drag her imagination away from what was happening on deck.

Nathan gave a snort of laughter, stirring her hair. ‘Yes, just a few.’ His hold on her tightened, not unpleasantly. He felt very strong. It was a novelty, being held by a man other than Papa. He’d been one for rapid bear-hugs, her father, impetuous lifts so her feet left the floor as he twirled her round. ‘How did you get this thin, Clem? I’d better keep calling you Clem, less risk of a slip.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, her lips touching the soft linen of his coarse white shirt as she spoke. A fraction of an inch away was the heat of his skin; she could almost taste it. ‘I was always slender. When my father died I didn’t feel much like eating; then, when I realised what Uncle Joshua was doing, my appetite vanished all together.’ She shivered and felt Nathan’s hand caress gently down her swollen cheek.

‘They made me eat the night I escaped. Apparently I was so skinny it would be unpleasant for Cousin Lewis to bed with me. He said I was like a boy.’ Nathan stiffened and muttered something, but all she could hear was that low growl again. ‘That’s what gave me the idea. I still had the clothes from when I used to run wild as a child with the local planters’ sons.’

‘How did you get out?’ He was talking to distract her, she thought, grateful for the attempt.

‘The house is on a cliff and my room has a balcony overhanging the sea. I wrote a despairing note to make them think I had thrown myself over and I climbed up the creepers from the balcony, along the ledge just below the roof and then slid down some other roofs. I stole a horse from one of the penns about two miles away.’ Nathan made an interrogative noise. ‘You’d say farm, I suppose. Or agricultural estate. I threw my clothes and my plait of hair away far from the house. They’ll think I’m dead, I hope.’

Clemence felt him lift his head. ‘It’s over.’

That poor man. He had probably done many awful things himself in the past, but he deserved a fair trial for his crimes, some dignity, not a brutal death for a tiny mistake.

Nathan didn’t free her and she did not try to duck out of his embrace. It was an illusion, she knew, but even the illusion of safety, of someone who cared, was enough just now. She felt her body softening, relaxing into his. ‘You’ve got guts. What did you hope to do?’ he asked.

‘Stow away, get to another island, find work.’ The lie slid easily over her tongue without her having to think. However good he was being to her now, if he knew she was a Ravenhurst, guessed at the power and the wealth of her relatives, then she became not a stray he had rescued, but thousands of pounds’ worth of hostage.

‘And what do you want to do now?’ he asked.

‘Have a bath,’ Clemence answered fervently.

Nathan chuckled, opened his arms and let her sit back upright. ‘We could both do with that,’ he agreed. Free of his embrace, she could study him. His eyes were not just blue, she realised. There was a golden ring round the iris and tiny flecks of black. As he watched her they seemed to grow darker, more intense. ‘I’ll have to see what I can organise. It’ll be cold water, though.’

She nodded, hardly hearing what he was saying, her syes searching his face for something she could not define. It felt as though he was still holding her, as though the blow to her head had shifted her thoughts and her perceptions. He knew she was a woman now, and somehow that made her see him differently also.

‘Nathan…’ Clemence touched his arm, not certain what she was asking, and then he was pulling her into his arms and his mouth took her lips and she knew.

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