Juliet Landon - The Maiden's Abduction

She turned back quickly to wound him. ‘I see. So it’s that too, is it? To prove that you can so easily take what he wants from under his nose. Well, well. With a ship and a crew of this size and a woman as naïve as me, who couldn’t? But don’t think you’ll ever have my co-operation, Master Silas Mariner. Now let me go back to Mistress Cecily. She needs me.’

He twisted a hand into her hair. ‘It was you, remember, who brought up Bard’s name, not once, but twice. If you find comparisons hard to bear, then think on the boyish pecks he gave you while I try to win your co-operation.’ His kiss this time was intended to teach her the difference between a man and a boy, but she had already discovered that, and needed no further demonstration of the power and scope of his artistry. For the next few moments she needed all her strength not to cry out or to fight for survival, and there were tears of anger in her eyes at its conclusion.

‘Let me go,’ she croaked. ‘Let me go back to—’

‘You’re not going anywhere. You’ll stay here tonight, where I can guard you.’

‘Against what? Jumping overboard? Cecily needs me, I tell you.’

‘She doesn’t. The ship’s physician is with her. You’re staying with me.’

‘And what d’ye think that lot out there will be thinking, after this?’

‘My master and crew are paid to sail the ship. They do as they’re told and keep their mouths shut.’

‘I cannot stay here…please.’

‘Hush, now, maid. You’ve had a long day and you need to sleep. I shall not harm you.’ He removed her shoes and straightened her skirts, then pulled blankets over them both, enclosing her against the bend of his body, stroking back her hair and caressing her back with tender hands.

She had hardly slept last night and, after a nerve-racking day, she was exhausted. Now, within the safety and comfort of his arms and the rocking of the ship, there were no more choices to be made or decisions to be met. Nevertheless, she summoned her iciest tones to fire a last salvo over her shoulder, to where his smile was already settling in. ‘You can’t do this, you know. You simply cannot do this.’

She heard the smile broaden. ‘Remind me, maid, if you will. What is it that I cannot do?’ His voice almost melted her.

‘You cannot insist on sleeping with a woman who dislikes you, for one. Nor can you take her somewhere she doesn’t want to go.’

‘Forgive me.’ He grinned, sweeping his fingertips down her neck. ‘But we merchants are an optimistic bunch. A law unto ourselves. Remind me again in a year, will you?’ He yawned. ‘And start calling me Silas.’

She woke once during the night, taking some time to recall where she was and why the large shape at her side was clearly not Cecily’s. Then she remembered, and tried to sit up and take her bearings. The ship rolled, throwing her on to him, and she was instantly enclosed by strong arms that flung her back with a soft thud, his body bearing down on her as the cabin tipped in the opposite direction.

She tasted the silkiness of his hair against her lips, the warm musky smell of his skin, and was reminded of her duty to maintain anger. ‘You planned it, didn’t you?’ she whispered. ‘Right from the start, you knew what you were going to do.’

His reply touched her lips, with no distance for the words to go astray. ‘Course I planned it. Course I knew what I was going to do. Don’t blame yourself, lovely thing, there was nothing you could have done to prevent it. It would have made no difference whether you’d agreed to come or not; I would still have taken you.’

The last words merged into the kiss that he had tried, without success, to delay, and Isolde had neither the time nor the will to withhold her co-operation, as she had sworn to do. Even in half-sleep, the nagging voice returned with its doubts, forcing her to declare them. ‘I don’t want to go to Flanders,’ she whispered, settling once more into his arms. It was all she could think of.

‘Then go to sleep, maid,’ he murmured.

‘Ships do not turn round easily in mid-ocean,’ Silas laughingly told her the next morning. ‘They’re not like horses. They’re not even like rowing boats.’

Isolde had not seriously thought they were, but daytime resistance was obviously going to be more potent than any other, and he must not be allowed to think for one moment that he was going to get away lightly with this flagrant piracy, for that was what it was.

Mistress Cecily, recovered enough to sit in a corner of the deck and sip some weak ale, was even less amused by the idea of Flanders than Isolde was, but then, her sense of the absurd was presently at a low ebb, her only real concern being to place her two feet on dry land any time within the next half-hour. Which bit of land was of no immediate consequence as long as it stood still.

For Isolde’s sake, she tried to take an interest, but this was predictably negative. ‘They’ll not speak our language, love. How shall we make ourselves understood? And what’s your father going to say? And Master Fryde? There’ll be such a to-do. We should never have…urgh!’

There was one thing guaranteed to halt the miseries of conjecture, albeit a drastic one, but there was something in what she said, even so. What was her father going to say?

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