Kasey Michaels - Regency Vows

“You would not murder a British subject,” he breathed. God, he needed more water.

Her lips curved into a terrifying yet seductive half smile. “A British subject who by all accounts perished at sea.”

Their eyes locked in silent battle. But her blade lay cool against his neck, and her chains sat heavy on his wrists. “I assure you of my utmost respect,” he said, and forced a half smile of his own. “Captain.”

* * *

IF THOMAS BARCLAY’S utmost respect included a perpetual salute from his male organ, he would find this a very long voyage indeed. “This is unacceptable,” Katherine said, storming into the great cabin, already guessing the next words that would fall from Philomena’s lips.

“I daresay the situation suits him well enough.” Amusement colored Phil’s voice. “I don’t suppose you noticed—”

“I noticed!”

“Noticed what?” William asked, looking up from the charts spread out on the table. Anne sat in a spear of sunlight on the floor, jiggling a length of twine for Mr. Bogles to attack.

“Never you mind,” Katherine said. “It was nothing.” The pressure she’d felt earlier in her gut had traveled to her head. She needed a nip of wine, morning hours be damned. She went to the cupboard and poured a tiny slosh. He hadn’t been as close to death as they’d assumed.

She raised the glass to her lips and tasted a blend of guilt and ire. She’d been wrong about his condition, but absolutely right about his temperament.

Phil settled into one of the plump chairs at the table. “Oh, I wouldn’t call it nothing. Suffice to say our guest seemed rather...pleased...to meet Katherine.”

William arched an amused brow. “Oh?”

Phil’s lips curved mischievously. “I would almost say...excited.”

The brow arched higher. “Oh.”

This was her reward for mercy. Thomas Barclay had no more been a midshipman on the Henry’s Cross than she was a cabin boy on the Possession. More likely he was an officer, and a high-ranking one at that. The lie had been there on his face, although if he’d been stronger, he would certainly have been able to hide it.

His utmost respect! Even with her blade at his neck, he’d defied her with his eyes.

“Is he quite recovered, Mama?” Anne asked.

“Not quite, dearest,” Katherine replied. “He’s still very weak from lack of food and drink.” Weak, yet everything about him screamed of power. Her blood still hummed with it. A man like that would have a difficult time with his superiors, indeed. Even a captain as ruthless as James Warre must have feared for his own authority.

This was exactly why they should have left Thomas Barclay in the water.

Worry lines furrowed Anne’s innocent brow. “May I go in and hold his hand?” The ball of twine fell out of Anne’s hands and rolled with the ship’s sway, and Katherine quickly set her glass aside to retrieve it, this time ignoring that she shouldn’t.

“My little angel of mercy,” she said, putting the twine back into small hands while Anne, blind since a fever took her sight three years ago, stared in the area of Katherine’s shoulder. “Not now. We know too little of him.” Not ever, and they knew enough. Anne would never be allowed in the same room with that beast. Pressure throbbed in Katherine’s temples as she smoothed Anne’s dark hair from her small, upturned face.

“Yet he suffers, Mama.”

Suffer was perhaps the wrong word. “He is comfortable for now. You mustn’t worry.” Anne would not pay the price for Katherine’s misjudgment—not ever again. “Be a good girl and take Mr. Bogles into William’s cabin for a while. You can play him a song on your bells. Are you hungry? I shall have cook send you some kesra.” The warm, soft flatbread was Anne’s favorite.

“Yes, please, Mama.” Anne stood up with her ball of twine and found her way out of the great cabin with practiced pats on this chair, then that one and then on the side table, then the doorjamb as Mr. Bogles darted past her into the passageway. Katherine resisted the urge to help, and the pressure intensified.

Devil take it, there was no time for a headache. She had to figure out what to do about the insubordinate in her bed.

“Do I need to run him through?” William asked the moment Anne was gone.

Phil laughed. “Katherine nearly did a good enough job of that herself. I feared she would slit the man’s throat.”

“He will learn to respect his superiors,” Katherine said, moving to inspect the charts herself, “or he will reap his reward accordingly.”

“Well, you certainly had respect from part of him.”

“Aha.” William leaned back in his chair. “A man can’t always control these things, you know. Poor fellow. Faced with the two most beautiful and powerful women on the sea, his humiliation was all but certain. Were you able to find out anything?”

Thomas Barclay would not compromise this voyage in any way. She would kill him first. “He survived a wreck of the Henry’s Cross outside Cadiz,” she said. “A midshipman, demoted by Captain Warre for insubordination—or so he says. It seems your friend dealt lightly with him.”

“Growing up on neighboring estates hardly makes James Warre a friend. The Henry’s Cross went down? God—unthinkable.”

“It would seem Captain Warre’s cannons aren’t as effective against Mother Nature as they are against wood and sails.” A memory snaked down her spine. When corsairs had captured the Merry Sea ten years ago and taken her captive, she’d thought Captain Warre would prove her savior. But Captain Warre hadn’t cared about saving anyone. His cannons had sunk the Merry Sea and one of the Corsair xebecs, while the other xebec slipped away with Katherine bound and gagged in its hold. There was no doubt he would have sunk it, too, if he’d been able. “Pity it wasn’t the good captain himself who washed up against our hull,” she added. “I would have relished the opportunity to finally meet him.”

“Ha!” Phil leaned forward. “To slit his throat, more likely, and then where would you be upon our return? Dangling from the end of a rope, that’s where.”

Upon their return, she would already be dangling—at the end of Nicholas Warre’s bill of pains and penalties. The Lords might well strip Dunscore from her before she could set foot inside those ancient walls again. Cousin Holliswell would smugly accept the title and the estate, and she would have once again failed Anne.

That would not happen. Not if Katherine had any say in the matter.

“Poor sod’s been through a hell of an ordeal,” William said, standing. “Suppose I’ll go talk with him. Probably beginning to wonder if he’s the only man on board.”

“Assure him we shall see to it that he suffers no more,” Phil said.

William laughed. “Still waiting for you to ease my suffering, Philomena.”

“The moment my desperation becomes that unbearable, I shall certainly let you know.” There was nothing between them, but William found no end of amusement at suggesting there should be.

“I won’t have you turning sympathetic with the prisoner,” Katherine called after him.

“Course not.” He grinned from the doorway. “I mean only to tighten the shackles—hold down the circulation and all that. Might solve the problem for next time.”

Next time. Good God. “My bed, a haven for deviants,” she muttered, and called after William, “See that you do!”

“Shackles aren’t all that deviant,” Phil commented after he left. “If you don’t want him chained to your bed, I’ll happily allow you to chain him to mine. Even in this sorry state, that man has more virility in his little finger than most men have in their—”

“Enough! As soon as we’re through the strait, he won’t be chained to anyone’s bed.”