And one he chose to allow to live on beyond him.
“I came to see if you are hungry.” She smiled beguilingly and Skye thought that she was really very pretty with her large breasts, trim waist, and dark eyes. Leticia. Roc knew her, he knew her by name. No, the Hawk knew her. Skye wondered just how well the Hawk knew her, and she felt ill. This was insane. She loved him. She despised him. She could not bear his death, and yet she hated this untenable position.
“Hungry … for food,” Leticia murmured.
“Ravenous,” Roc told her.
“I will bring something.” She came very close to them both, kneeling by the bedding. She watched Skye with a searing curiosity. Skye raised her chin and the dark-haired woman chuckled huskily. “Ice fires can burn hot, so they say,” she murmured, and laughed again. Then her voice lowered and she spoke very softly to Roc alone. “Blackbeard wants to see you. Alone. He thinks that the two of you should talk.”
“Does he?” Roc said.
Leticia nodded fervently. “He hates Logan. Always has hated him. You know that.”
Roc shrugged. “But Blackbeard is on his honor here. We came to him as a mediator between us.”
Leticia tossed back her dark hair. “Blackbeard is his own law, and his own honor. He will do what he chooses, and that will be the honorable thing. If men say that it is cruel and treacherous, he will be glad of it. He savors what they say, as you know well enough. If a man fears the terror of Blackbeard’s wrath, he is quick to lay down his arms. You must understand that power, Hawk!”
Roc nodded gravely. “All right. I’ll speak with him.”
Leticia looked to Skye with amusement. “Not now. I’ve not come to interrupt anything!” She laughed again. “Later. When darkness has fallen, then I’ll come, and I’ll bring you to him.”
“All right,” Roc agreed. Leticia smiled, and whirled around like a young doe to leave them. When the door closed behind her, Skye elbowed Roc with all of her might. She was gratified to feel him release her and grunt painfully.
“Damn you, Skye Cameron!” he swore to her, staggering to his feet.
“Damn me! You tossed me about like so much baggage, and seized hold of me in front of that—that woman! I am not your whore, Captain, and I—”
“Yes, you are,” he told her, his tone sharp with warning. He came over to her and she started to back away, but he caught her arm and wrenched her against him. “Here, milady, you are my whore, a cherished whore, and therein lies your safety. So go ahead, scream and fight and lash out, it makes no difference. You will obey me here, or sorely regret it, I promise.”
She ground down hard on her teeth, wishing she could think of something horrible enough to say to him. He released her, and as he did, there came a subtle tap on the door again.Leticia slipped back in. “Food, Captain Hawk. And”—she paused, turning to Skye and curtsying with mock respect—“of course, for you, too, Lady Cameron! The finest, of course. The very finest.”
Skye inclined her head toward the woman. “Thank you,” she said softly. Her gentle tones seemed to confuse Leticia. She stared at Skye a moment longer, then shrugged and turned back to Roc, setting the tray she carried upon the table. “From Blackbeard’s own supply of dark rum, Captain. And for the lady—” She glanced Skye’s way quickly again. “For the lady he sends Burgundy off of the French packet St. Louis. And there’s roast meat and bread, and all the very best cuts, I assure you!”
“Thank you very much, Leticia,” the Hawk said. He offered her a wry, grateful smile. Skye felt her stomach twist, for in the midst of all this, he was still a strikingly handsome man, charismatic as the Hawk, charismatic as Lord Cameron.
She lowered her head slightly. Then she lifted her eyes, realizing that the woman was still watching her. “Thank you, Leticia,” she repeated. Leticia did not say anything to Skye. She nodded to her, then looked to Roc. “I’ll be back when the others are in drunken stupors, when I can bring you to Blackbeard.”
She left them. Roc looked to Skye; then, every inch the gentleman, he pulled out her chair for her. He helped her into it before taking the wine from the tray and pouring out a pewter mug of it for her. He sat down himself, lifting a red cloth from the food and then looking to the rum flask provided for him. “Dark Caribbean,” he murmured, and drew deeply on it. “It’s a fine brew,” he told Skye.
“A fine brew!” she exclaimed. “At a time like this—”
“At a time like this,” he muttered. “I’m sure that it’s an exceptionally fine brew.” He drew on it deeply, eyeing her with wary, narrowed eyes.
She didn’t look at him but at the tray of food. The meat did smell delicious. Roc set down the rum flask and skewered her a piece of beef with a table knife, setting it upon her plate. “Eat,” he told her.
“I can’t eat—”
“I’m sure that you can. We haven’t had a bite in a day, and I’m famished, if you are not.”
He took a rib bone and plowed into it with gusto. Skye watched him and realized that she was starving. It was not so difficult to enjoy the pirate’s feast before her. The beef was succulent and delicious and flavored with salt and peppercorns.
The wine, too, was good.
Skye sipped it, watching Roc. “What does this mean?” she asked him. “With—Leticia.”
He shrugged. “It means that Blackbeard wants One-Eyed Jack’s treasure.”
“But there is no treasure.”
“There is a treasure.”
“But not a treasure that you can find!” she wailed.
He set down his food and drank deeply from the rum flask again. “There is a treasure, milady, and that for the moment shall suffice.”
“And that for the moment shall suffice!” Impatiently she stood, and her chair fell behind her. “Don’t you take that tone with me, Lord Hawk, or whoever you would be today! I am in this, too—”
“And you do not know the rules!” He was up as well, coming around the table to her. She was suddenly drawn into his arms. His fingers raked into her hair and he drew her head back, searching her eyes. “You do not know the rules, my love; you have only your reckless courage, and that will not serve us now! For the love of God, milady, pay heed to me!”
His hold upon her was so very tight. She smiled very slowly, sensually, wistfully. “It is just, sir, that in truth, I would not see you killed.”
He stared at her intently, then he drew her to him, burying his head against her throat, emitting some deep-felt sound of passion.
“Skye, Skye,” he murmured, “my brave, beautiful love! God! That I could but have you safely away from here this very moment!”
“But I am not away!” she whispered. “And I cannot see you go.”
He lifted her up then into his arms. His eyes locked with hers and he strode with her to the crude straw mattress upon the floor with its scanty blanket. He laid her there with tenderness, coming beside her. His mouth covered hers. His kiss ran passionate, and deep, and it ignited her fears and her desires, and she knew that she wanted to cling to him forever. She could not let him go. She wanted him. She wanted to make love to him. She wanted to hold on to the splendor and glory of all that raged between them. She had not forgiven him.…
But she had not fallen out of love with him, either, and it seemed that every second now death came closer to their doorway.
He pulled away from her. He saw her eyes, wide and teal and steady upon his. Her lips parted slightly, damp with his kiss. She offered her arms out to him again and he groaned, holding her close.
“I want to make love to you,” he whispered. “I want to lie down by crystal waters, with the fragrance of flowers, with the sun overhead burning down upon our flesh, or with the moon offering a gentle glow. I want to give you a soft mattress and silken sheets, or an Eden of sweet earth. I want to love you, and not upon this bare and ugly straw.…”
She touched his hair and stroked it from his face. She met his eyes with her smile wistful, her gaze both damp and aflame. “It is
Eden, it is paradise,” she told him with all of her heart. “Where you are, dear sir, it is paradise, for that is what you create inside of me, within my soul.”
He caught her fingers, and kissed them. He met her eyes again. “I do love you, milady. With all of my heart, I love you. As Lord Cameron, as the Silver Hawk, as any man, myself, I love you, and I will do so until my dying day.”
She touched his face. His fingers dropped to her bodice and he pulled upon the delicate satin strings until her breasts fell free to his touch. He savored them with his touch, with the sweet intensity of his teeth and tongue and lips. His hands ravaged her thighs, teasing, stroking. He entered into the core of her, and once his touch came so intimately to her, the fires within her soared, and she arched against him, desperate for more of the splendor that churned its fine sweet storm throughout the length of her.
He was the Hawk, he was her husband, and there was no fear any longer that the one might be recognized as the other.
He stood, and shed his clothing, and came back down beside her, stripping away what remained of her gown.
Shadows fell more deeply. Night was falling. Skye did not fear the darkness. He was with her. His hands were upon her. His kiss seared her flesh, and made her warm.
She rose on a wind of fate and glory, desire lapping against her flesh, the fever of it entering her fingers and her lips. She bathed his shoulders with her kiss, she raked his spine with her nails.
She whispered to him of her longing. Of the thing that swirled inside of her. Of the way that she needed him, needed him so desperately to appease the yearning.…
And it was paradise. There was no coarse straw, no sandy blanket, no shanty walls around them. The scent of the earth was with them, the music of their heartbeats rose.
Her flesh was silk, and his was splendor. The sun was in his fingertips, spiraling warmth that caressed her naked flesh. Rays that fell against her spine and stroked and rounded her hip, rays that entered intimately, deep, deep within her.…
She no longer whispered, she cried out. She strained against him with urgency, her hips undulating to the demanding rhythm of his thrust, her limbs locked around him. She soared and swept ever higher into Eden, then she called out his name, shuddering as the force of his seed racked her again and again. She felt the absolute constriction of his body, the explosion within her, and then she fell softly. Eden was gone, but she drifted on clouds, and those clouds left her sadly satiated and deeply in love upon the raw straw and the sandy blanket. It didn’t matter. His arms were still around her. He held her. He stroked her hair.
And that was the paradise of it. Distant and far, as paradise might seem.
“If something does happen—”
“Shush!” she told him, rolling to cover his lips with her fingers.
He drew her hand away and cradled her to his chest, massaging his fingers through the hair at her nape. “Listen to me, Skye, I beg you. I do not believe that it is so simple to conceive an heir, and yet I tell you now that if I have a prayer tonight, it is that you might already carry my child.”
“Roc—”
“No, please. I am an eternal optimist, my love—and an eternal rogue, I suppose you might say. I will fight Logan with whatever I might have until the very end. But in case—”
“Roc—”
“No! Listen to me!” Passionately, intently, he rolled her beneath him, demanding that she heed him. “You promise me this, milady, whatever else may come, whatever else may be. If we have created a child, swear to me that you will hold well to his or her heritage.”
“Roc—”
“Cameron Hall. The land. The estate.”
“Stop it, please!” Skye cried. “You speak of bricks and a handful of earth when—”
“No, lady, no!” he protested gravely. “It is not land, not brick. It is the Tidewater, it is a—dream! It is where my forebears came to live, to find their destinies. It is everything that I am, milady. It is my family. It is the future, and it is the past. There is honor there in the way that we have lived, in the Eden that we have carved from the earth. Promise me that come what may, you will preserve it!”
He was so very tense! Death lay all around them in the shanty, in the night, and he was desperate that she keep his land. She wanted to protest again, but she could not. “I promise.”
“A promise you will keep, love.”
“I have kept every promise that I have ever given you!” she whispered passionately.
He kissed her lips. “So you have.”
“I vow it, Roc. With all of my heart, I vow it,” she swore.
He ruffled her hair, falling down beside her, cradling her closer. “It is always beautiful there,” he murmured.
She smiled beside him. “Always. The days are not too hot because of the river.”
“And winter is never too cold, because of the river.”
“The grass is green and blue and rich.”
“And the fields are verdant.”
He kissed her forehead. “There’s an old oak there, down by the river, secluded by other trees and the gardens. The water rushes by almost silently. The leaves are shields against too much sunlight. There are pines there, too, and the earth is moist and soft and giving. It is, I think, Eden, here on earth.”
“Is it?” Skye murmured.
“It is. My father used to take my mother there. He told me once. When she died, he told me how she had loved to come there, and how she had laughed. And what great difficulty he’d had convincing her that none could see her if she shed her clothes. And she said then that they were like Adam and Eve in the garden, and he promised her that there were no serpents in his Eden.”
“Only wickedly seductive Camerons!” Skye murmured.
His arms tightened about her, then he suddenly bolted up.
“What is it?” Skye demanded.
He didn’t answer her, but drew the blanket around her. He reached for his breeches just as a quick knock sounded, and was still stepping into them even as the door opened. Leticia slipped quietly into the room.
Skye held the blanket close to her breast, watching as Leticia drew a finger to her lips, beckoning for Roc to come with her. Skye thought that the woman looked at her curiously where she lay silent upon the straw, but she could not tell. Shadows filled the room.
“I’ll be back!” Roc promised her softly. Skye watched him go to the woman and whisper something to her. He glanced Skye’s way. “She’ll come back to light the candle.”
Skye smiled, catching her lower lip between her teeth as she fell back against the straw. She watched them leave, then she closed her eyes, shivering.
It had not been a frightening place when he had been with her.
It had, for a time, been created a paradise.
But he was gone now, and it had become a shanty, chilled by sea breezes, covered in sand, barren and stark.
Skye rolled upon her stomach and rested her head upon her arm, exhausted and yet keenly aware that she couldn’t be so, that she needed desperately to think. This was a world of madness. She could be safe from it, but Roc would sail away to certain death, and she could not let him. And Logan still held her father. It was the worst nightmare she might have ever imagined.
Skye was dimly aware that the door opened again. She wasn’t worried. Leticia was coming back to light the candle. Skye was so deeply enmeshed in her worries that little could have moved her then, for she knew that she could not leave Roc, not ever; she hadn’t known that she had taken vows when she did, but there was but one thing that could part them, and that was death.
Her father! Where did Logan have him? If Blackbeard decided to help them, Logan would still have her father.…
She frowned suddenly, aware that no candle was being lit, that Leticia was murmuring no words to her, mocking or other. She started to spin around but halted as something cold and steel touched upon her bare back.
“Be very still, my dear.”
Skye froze instantly. It was Log
an. He spoke softly in the night, but the evil and menace in his tone was unmistakable.
The cold steel skimmed along her naked back from her nape to the small of her spine. Logan chuckled softly. “Once I had fingers, milady, and now you feel what is there, a hook for a hand, fashioned of metal. There is ice where once there was warmth. And still, it is an interesting caress, is it not? Feel my touch, lady. Brood upon it, if you will.”
She bit down on the flesh inside her jaw, trying hard not to scream as she felt the hook skim over her again. He touched her with the curve of the hook until he came to the end of her spine, then he teased her flesh with the rough edge of the hook, a touch that hinted of drawn blood any second.
He did not want her blood, she realized. He wanted the Hawk’s blood. He only wanted her because she was the Hawk’s.
“Have you enjoyed your evening, my dear? Your last night with Captain Hawk. It’s a pity that he cannot be trusted. He did try to buy your freedom, but I’m afraid that I can’t let that be. If Blackbeard takes you, then I’ve nothing left to use against him. Blackbeard is a greedy man. And this time, he cannot have it all. Turn around. Look at me.”
“No!”
He caught her arm with his good hand and wrenched her over. She would have fought him in a frenzy, but his hook landed instantly against her throat and she went still, staring at him with hate and venom afire in her eyes.
Then she realized that he was not alone. Two of his men stood silently, just inside the door. How many of them were behind it? Would Roc come back and stumble into a trap? She needed to scream, she needed to warn him, she needed to call help. She didn’t know Logan’s intentions, but she had to warn Roc that he was here.
Logan chuckled huskily, drawing her attention back to his face. She met his eyes once again, and drew breath to scream.
“Don’t! Don’t do it!” The point of the hook lay against her jugular. Slowly, her breath escaped her. She could not scream.
He smiled slowly and idly drew the curve of his hook down the length of her throat to her collarbone, then taunting, a curious caress indeed, over the rise of her breast. The hook continued downward, dislodging her blanket, leaving her bare to his assessment. She bit down ever harder upon her lip to keep from panic. A scream rose and bubbled in her throat, but as his eyes returned to hers, she knew that he would not hesitate to slit her open with the weapon he wore upon his severed wrist.