Your Wicked Heart

  “Your wit,” he said, “cuts so deeply. Behold me bleeding . . .”

  A curious change came over his face—a hardening of his expression. She followed his eyes and spotted the object that had shot across the room.

  She sprang for it a second before he did, her hand closing over the ring.

  “Hand that over,” he snapped.

  “You can’t have it!” She meant to sell this, too. It was solid gold, and nearly too heavy to wear.

  “Give it to me.”

  His voice had dropped to a murderous growl. He had his own routines, too—charm evidently being the most fleeting and shallow of them.

  Loathing him but unwilling to ignore the warning in his voice, she opened her palm.

  He plucked up the ring. One glance at the inscription inside the band and his face darkened further. “How did you get this?”

  “My fiancé gave it to me.”

  His gaze raked up her, spearing her in place. “Liar.”

  “I’m no liar! It was to be my wedding ring—that is the truth!”

  He held her in that dreadful gaze an unbearable moment longer, as though weighing all the awful things he might do to her. “And the inscription? Did he explain that to you?”

  The inscription was a date. She had not thought to ask about it. She shook her head.

  Slowly he exhaled. Then he pocketed the ring.

  “Give that back!” she cried. “That is—”

  “Hand me the stocking so we can finish this farce.”

  “No!” She was not letting him anywhere near her now! “I’m fine as I am. I want my—”

  “Christ!” He yanked the ring from his pocket and thrust it back toward her. “Keep it, then! I can have it back from you in a moment. You do realize that, yes? When it comes to you, I could do anything I pleased. It isn’t as though a foot of space would stop me, or a blindfold, or any of the men on this ship—so leave off this sham and turn around!”

  This sound and very unwelcome logic froze her in place. He had laid it out plainly: she must trust him, for she had no choice to do otherwise.

  Whether she trusted him or not made no difference to her safety with him.

  “I take it back,” she said faintly. “I think ladies must not like you after all.”

  His smile was grim. “No, you were right before. They like me very well. Even blindfolded, I’ll have your gown unbuttoned in a minute.”

  That was not . . . reassuring.

  He held out his hand, flicking his fingers impatiently, imperiously. Hand it over.

  Taking a deep breath, she thrust the stocking at him. He tied it around his eyes twice, knotted it firmly, and then held out his hand again, gesturing now for her to approach.

  She presented her back to him and focused very hard on a knot in the grain of the wooden bulkhead. But he was as good as his promise, his fingers moving over the buttons quickly and cleverly. The gown sagged a little as it parted. She clutched the neckline and turned back around.

  He had not removed his blindfold.

  “Now you will leave,” she said, “so I may change.”

  He sighed. “Your corset,” he said. “It requires my aid as well.”

  She flushed. Curse her for not choosing more practical undergarments in which to be wed!

  But he was right. She did require his help to unlace. And . . . there was no mockery in his voice, no sign that he was enjoying her predicament. That was . . . mildly comforting.

  “Very well,” she said on a breath. “Go to it.”

  The laces, too, he undid with speed and ease. As his fingers brushed her back, their warmth translating clearly through the thin lawn of her chemise, it came to her that he was not lying. He’d had a great deal of practice in undressing women.

  His hands were . . . gentler than they needed to be. Mrs. Pennypacker’s maid sometimes did this service for her, and the girl seemed to take pleasure in making the process as uncomfortable as possible. But this man, who professed to think her a criminal, took great care with his movements.

  She frowned. Such small mercies should not count in his favor.

  “Just another moment,” he murmured, and the heat of his breath on her bare nape took her by surprise, raising a pleasant shiver.

  She caught her breath, mortified. But if he had noticed her reaction, he did not remark it. It seemed he taunted her only when she was fully clothed.

  Surely that counted as some form of honor, even if a very trifling one.

  And then, as the laces finally loosened, he ruined it by laying his thumb on her nape. A single brush, a journey of no more than two inches—a warm, delicate touch on her bare skin, hypnotic somehow. His thumb slowly stroked back up again, an unmistakable caress—

  She sucked in a breath and jerked away. “What on earth—”

  “Who hit you?” he asked.

  Shock made her stammer. “I—I don’t . . .”

  God in heaven.

  “You can see through that!” she cried.

  He tugged off the blindfold. But in place of the expected leer, he wore a scowl. “Someone whipped you,” he said. “Along your back. Who was it?”

  Shame and embarrassment crawled through her. “It does not concern you. Now leave me in peace so I may dress!”

  “You aren’t injured elsewhere, are you? Somewhere I can’t see?”

  Was that concern in his voice? “Why would you care? You mean to drown me!”

  He gave her a look of sober concentration. “I’m not going to drown you, and you know it. I am not the villain of this piece.”

  “Oh? Then who is? For I don’t remember anyone else kidnapping me recently!”

  A muscle flexed in his jaw. Then he brushed past her toward the door, pausing on the threshold to say over his shoulder, “I am no monster. If you are injured, we will find you a doctor in Malta.”

  The door closed quietly behind him. Knees trembling, Amanda sank onto the bed.

  She had a good deal of experience in recognizing villains. They did not look at her with sympathy, and they never offered to fetch doctors.

  But Satan’s minion had a sweeter lure than fists, no doubt.

  Something was very wrong with her. Else, why did she want to trust him?

  Against her will, her thoughts returned to the brushing of his thumb against her nape. How long had it been since anyone had touched her so? Gently, almost tenderly. Not driven by anger or lust, but—if she believed him—by simple concern for her.

  How pathetic did it make her, that a touch free of malice might translate to her lonely heart as tenderness?

  With a moan, she fell face-first onto the mattress. England, she thought. England. She could not arrive fast enough.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Miss Thomas had accused him of finding flaws in everything. But Spence could come up with no complaint against this sunset over the Mediterranean—an explosion of color, the water glowing in the sun’s dying beams.

  She had been coldly reserved with him in the day and a half since he’d helped her undress. But now he was half tempted to fetch her from the cabin so she might see the sunset herself.

  Take a friend with you on the journey, Aunt Agatha had suggested to him when he’d booked his ticket for Turkey. Quite irrationally, she had felt guilty for the inconvenience posed to Spence by the trip. Won’t you be lonely? Why not make it a holiday? You certainly deserve one!

  Solitude is the best holiday I can imagine, Spence had said—wryly, so as not to hurt her feelings. But he had meant the sentiment. The prospect of time to himself, unencumbered by others’ needs, had promised to be a great restorative.

  Yet what he felt now, staring at the sky, was the same nagging discontent that followed him through his daily routine in England. Like a distant, dull, discordant melody, it had followed him across the world—growing louder in the night, and sharper like an ache, perhaps especially when he was alone.

  Is this all there is to life?

  Absurd. He had no time for such
trifling, philosophical worries. And certainly he could not be lonely. In the normal course, he had barely a moment to himself throughout the day.

  Yet . . . it might be nice to see the sunset through someone else’s admiring eyes. Their admiration might show him that this—this view, this life—was, in itself, enough.

  Certainly the view would win Miss Thomas’s enthusiasm. No doubt it would inspire the same look she had worn when discussing the Hagia Sophia. She seemed well pleased with the world’s offerings. She seemed . . . alive to the world in a way that most others were not.

  But the whim to fetch her mildly alarmed him. Surely his own admiration should suffice. So he stayed where he was, his elbows propped against the stern bulwark. The glassy water broke into ripples in the wake cut by the ship, reflecting the color of the clouds overhead: thin strips of lavender, unfurled like banners across the darkening sky.

  She wore bruises of much the same shade, in long, fading stripes. Someone had struck her—she of the dimpled, rosy mouth, the milkmaid curls and the wide blue eyes. Someone had used a switch.

  The man who had used it deserved to learn how such blows felt when dealt by someone of his own size.

  Spence blew out a breath. This rage was misplaced. She was no one to him, no one he needed to protect. And she did not desire his aid. Last night, over dinner—and then again this morning, at breakfast—she had refused to speak of her abuser. “It is none of your concern,” she’d said—despite his best attempts to charm her; despite his brief effort to intimidate her.

  Now he was trying a new tactic. Let her stew in the silence of the cabin for long, unbroken hours. Perhaps she would be grateful enough for company later to want to unburden herself and answer his questions.

  Who struck you? Who really proposed marriage to you?

  For that ring—he had recognized it. It was his cousin’s, inscribed with Charles’s birth date. My fiancé gave it to me, she’d said. So perhaps Charles had yielded to the vices inherent in the St. John blood, and set out to cozen a pretty girl into bed. In which case, Spence owed her an apology and a handsome recompense.

  Or perhaps she was lying, and she had stolen the ring from Charles. Spence would know, if only she would tell him whence those bruises came. For he judged Charles capable of many things—even a fraud to trick a pretty girl into his bed—but never violence. As a boy, Charles had wept at the sight of broken-winged birds. He would never raise a hand to a woman.

  If she said her fiancé had abused her, then he would know that Charles had not been her fiancé.

  A shrill cry came from the distance: “Stop that! Stop that at once!”

  As Spence wheeled around, another bellow rose—the captain’s voice, an unintelligible roar of Greek.

  Goddamn it. What now?

  He broke into a run, slowing only to navigate the tight corner that led around the wheelhouse. When he stepped onto the open deck of the bow, the sight that greeted him made him curse: his troublesome charge had her arms wrapped around the captain, attempting to restrain him bodily from using the whip in his hand. A boy cowered before them, sprawled haphazardly across the deck.

  With a savage roar, the captain shook Miss Thomas off, then spun to face her—but whatever his intentions, Spence ended them by snatching the whip and tossing it away.

  “What in God’s name is going on here?” he shouted.

  The captain, red-faced, snarled out a string of incomprehensible syllables. Miss Thomas said, “He was trying—”

  “Boy is thief !” the captain spat. “I teach him better! This girl—she will watch her own business, or she go”—here he sketched a sharp gesture with his hand, a diving motion—“overboard!”

  Miss Thomas loosed a cry. “You were thrashing him bloody! For nothing! It was my fault, I asked him for the food—”

  “Shut up,” Spence said. He’d become aware of the silent ring of spectators encircling them. The other members of this ragtag crew had him—and her—surrounded.

  Go easy, old boy.

  “I am very sorry,” he said to the captain. And then to her, through his teeth, as he took her by the elbow: “This is not our business.”

  “But it wasn’t his fault! I only wanted a bit of bread before dinner, and he took it for me, because I asked him—”

  Good God. He realized suddenly what had happened here. The boy, being an idiot perhaps too enamored of her pretty face, had gone to fetch food for her. And had been caught and accused of stealing.

  “You take her away!” yelled the captain.

  “He is bleeding!” Miss Thomas yelled back. “You must—”

  But her words were lost on a gasp as Spence hauled her off. When she resisted, he said in an undertone, “Every man on this ship is watching. Do you truly want to be tossed overboard? Unlike mine, the captain’s threats may not be idle.”

  That silenced her. She followed him down the narrow, creaking ladder into their cabin. After slamming the door and bolting it, Spence laid his forehead against the rough wood.

  An ugly explosion of laughter came from above.

  He began to wonder if they should not have waited for a berth on a more reputable vessel.

  Her sniffle brought his head up. She was wiping her nose with the back of her wrist. Her sunny chignon had been knocked askew, curls beginning to spring free. Her eyes looked huge.

  “Did he hurt you?” he asked. He always traveled with a pistol. Perhaps it was time he loaded it.

  “Me? No! But the boy—”

  “It was your fault,” he cut in. “The boy should not have listened to you. Little idiot.”

  “It was only a piece of bread!”

  Christ God. “If you haven’t gathered, this is not a vessel for tourists. They do not serve buffets on this ship. Food is a serious matter.”

  She collapsed onto the bunk, her face a mask of bewilderment. “You can’t truly be angry at me! That boy is no older than twelve! His back was bloody—but perhaps you approve of such methods.” Her laughter sounded hysterical. “Yes, of course you do. How did I forget? I’m speaking to my kidnapper—”

  “Enough!” The accusatory note in her voice infuriated him. He had never used violence on anyone. Never. His uncle had favored such methods; he had ruled the family through fear and his fists. And Spence had seen firsthand what came of that approach. His cousins were flighty, wild, undependable and reckless. He himself had chosen a different path in ruling them, a better one, with far better results . . .

  Or so he had thought. He sat down on the stool, scrubbing his eyes, suddenly exhausted. “Just tell me,” he said. “Did your fiancé beat you?” Say yes. Prove to me that it could not have been Charles behind this fraud.

  Silence. He looked up. She was glaring at the closed door, her delicate jaw set stubbornly. Another blond ringlet sprang from her pins, spiraling wildly over one flushed cheek. She tucked it impatiently behind her ear.

  Her upper arm was red. As though somebody had grabbed her. But Spence had handled her only by the elbow.

  Anger lit in him anew. A new mark of abuse to match those on her back. Damn Papadopoulos. And damn her for assuming the best of the world. Did she imagine that her brand of wide-eyed idealism would inspire the best in men’s hearts? Had she not been given ample opportunity to learn better? “You have a talent,” he said, “for landing yourself in trouble. That is certainly clear.”

  Her chest rose and fell dramatically. “I suppose you think I should have let him beat that boy. To stand by like a coward!” But then her head dipped, and he saw her catch her lip between her teeth. “For a mistake of my making,” she added softly.

  Christ. She really did think him a monster. He supposed he couldn’t blame her for that, but . . . he did blame her. Did she not have eyes? Did she not have the wits God gave a mouse? He had not abused her. Had never manhandled her.

  He winced. All right, he’d manhandled her. But in his position, what man would not have thought her a criminal? To go in search of a man who was purloining
his name and his letters of credit, and to find her seeking his own impostor, claiming to be engaged to him—

  And then he had dragged her onto this pirate’s ship and locked her in a cabin.

  He rubbed his eyes again. “Look,” he said. God above, this entire trip had turned into a nightmare. Once he set foot in England, he was never again leaving it—nor allowing any of his cousins to do so. “No, I do not think you should have stood by and let the boy be whipped. You should have come and found me. Rough sorts like this captain—they respond better to their fellow men than to the pleas of a woman.” He felt his mouth twist. “Grabbing him was beyond stupid of you. He outweighs you by five stone.”

  “There was no time.” She eyed him, her expression calm now. “The boy was crying out for mercy. I had to do something.”

  A curious sensation fluttered in his chest. He roundly ignored it. Stupidity did not deserve his admiration. “Oh, you speak Greek now, do you? You understood what the boy was saying?”

  “It was clear from his tone. And his tears,” she added darkly.

  He took a long breath, trying to gather his wits. He supposed—if he was to be strictly fair—she was no more to blame than the boy, who’d had every reason to expect a punishment, and no reason at all to hope for her help. Most women would not have dared to intervene.

  And God help him if he did not know exactly how amazed that boy must have been when this woman had come to his aid. Spence still recalled with visceral clarity the first time Aunt Agatha had intervened with her husband on his behalf. He still felt the crushing weight of the great debt he owed her for it, too—otherwise, why would he be on this wild-goose chase, looking for her son?

  For Aunt Agatha, he would do any number of favors. Forever. He’d known his uncle too well to underestimate what she had risked when interfering with his beatings. Agatha had risked her very life.

  Perhaps courage itself demanded a little stupidity, then. As Miss Thomas herself had noted, women were vulnerable. At greater peril from scoundrels. Their bravery always came at a greater risk to them.