“So what kind of man becomes a privateer?” she asked.
“Don’t try to solve me, Lilli. I’m not a riddle devised for your amusement.”
She rolled her eyes in response. “Where did you last sail to before London?”
He hesitated. “New Orleans, if you must know.”
She drew in a quick gasp of surprise. “Do they really have swamps with scaly creatures?”
His compressed lips gave Christina the impression the captain was holding back a smile. “Outside New Orleans, yes.”
“How exciting! I think I would like to go there someday.”
“A swamp is hardly a place for a lady.”
“It seems no place is any place for a lady.” She frowned. “Life is extremely tedious when limited to needlepoint and drawing room gossip.”
He cocked a brow. “So you stowed on board my ship simply for an adventure?”
“Oh, no,” she protested. “I fled London.”
-74-
The Lady and the Dragon
“Why? I know you don’t have a sick mama or a sister named Helen. You can’t be a merchant’s daughter if you spend your days over needlework. What is the truth? Is someone chasing you?”
Christina nodded, thoughts racing. She still could not risk revealing her identity. He would likely strangle her posthaste—or worse, ransom her back to her grandfather.
“Who are you running from, Lilli? A shade more of the truth this time, if you don’t mind.”
But she did mind, which meant she had to make up something—fast.
Latching onto a tidbit of the latest scandal she’d overheard before leaving London, she said, “I—I ran from my lover. He’s quite mad.”
A lover. Drex absorbed her information in gut-churning silence. He wanted to deny her story, but held his tongue. Lilli was young. Too young to be married, perhaps, but old enough to have an illicit lover. Still, she had lied to him before, more than once.
“Mad?” he queried.
“Yes. Jealous of any man who even casts his eye my way.”
If her story were true, Drex could understand the man’s emotions. He felt them himself just listening to Lilli say that someone else had kissed her sweet berry lips and stroked the curves of her hips while sinking deep into her body, as he fantasized about during long nights, knowing that only a rickety door separated them.
“He’s dangerous,” she added.
Drex snapped his attention back to her. “Did he hurt you?”
Lilli merely looked away, leaving Drex to assume the worst. Yes, her tale could be yet another tall one, but something in her face, the pensive cast of her eyes, said she had been hurt. Besides, she had spoken before of a man who would destroy her once he found her. Maybe she told the truth this time.
A lump of fury settled in the pit of Drex’s stomach. How could a man, any man, look at Lilli and want to hurt her?
Drex ached to comfort her, but refrained.
-75-
Shelley Bradley
Her story explained much: The haste with which she had fled, the expensive gifts stashed in her valise, the skittishness she exhibited around him, especially when he had been shirtless. Even now, her wide eyes bespoke anxiety.
Had some bastard beat or raped her? An urge to do violence rose up inside him. “How did he hurt you?”
She glanced up warily, her small white teeth worrying her bottom lip. “Let us not speak of it, please. It’s past, and I will never see him again.”
Clenching his fists, Drex held a frustrated sigh. He wanted to know the truth, learn the scoundrel’s name and… What? Avenge her like some knight errant? Down that path lay dangerous thoughts and feelings. No matter what she said, Lilli was a lady, not the kind of woman who belonged on his ship. Not the kind who consorted with privateers born on the wrong side of the blanket.
Besides, he did not need Lilli and her penchant for trouble. Saving Ryan and keeping the British off his back were paramount. He needed to remember that fact when confronted with his stowaway’s artless smiles and mouth-watering curves.
A gust of ocean breeze swirled the salty air about. Beside him, Lilli shivered, hugging herself.
Drex eyed her short, puffed sleeves. Even in the moon’s buttery light, he could make out the goose pimples on her arms—as well as her hard nipples poking the light muslin fabric of her bodice.
He held in a groan as the tightening at the front of his breeches let Drex know his thoughts had wondered too far.
“Didn’t you bring a wrap from your cabin?” He tried to sound annoyed, but all he wanted was to press Lilli against him and feel her soft curves melding into his body.
“I no longer have one. The cloak I wore aboard smelled dreadfully of animal fat, so I tossed it into the water.”
He wanted to curse her for her impracticality, her lack of planning…and for being so damned tempting. Instead, he stepped in front of her to shield her from the wind.
“Go inside.”
-76-
The Lady and the Dragon
Drex’s words came out more harshly than he intended. His inexplicable urge to protect her warred with his desire to have her in his bed. Either he was going to shout at her—or touch her.
God, what if her latest story was true? If one man had frightened her from all others, she would hardly be in search of a new lover. True, he would gladly volunteer for the position, in any position she desired, given other circumstances. But he could not succumb now. Taking a lover who had Ryan’s aptitude for irresponsibility would be beyond foolish. He did not have the time for dalliance, no matter how much his body wished otherwise. Besides, if some man had hurt Lilli, he could not change the past, and she would hardly be likely to invite him into her bed or her body for a night of hard sex.
Instead of leaving, Lilli seemed to have her own agenda, as usual. She sidled closer to his back and shivered against him. Drex felt her breasts against his back, the wispy touch of her fingers on his arm. His cock tightened again in response.
“Damn it, Lilli. Stop shivering and go to your cabin.”
“But I was enjoying the fresh ai—”
“Now you’re finished.”
He grabbed her by the arm and began hauling her below deck. Predictably, she struggled.
“I won’t be ordered about like some naughty child.”
He gripped her tighter. “On this ship, you will.”
With that, he dragged her to her cabin and shut the door on her sputtering.
In his own cabin, he could hear her muttering through the closed door separating them. Clearly, she wasn’t happy with his behavior.
Neither was he. Continued rumination about whether Lilli’s breasts would fill his hands perfectly and how tightly her sex would grip his cock had no place in his plans to save his brother.
Drex lay down on his bunk with a sigh and tried to concentrate on who might have written the anonymous note to Manchester back in London. The mystery needed solving.
-77-
Shelley Bradley
The culprit certainly could not have been Greg. But had somebody overheard them talking at the tavern? Even so, how would that somebody know which club Manchester frequented?
And would Lilli’s skin, damp from their exertion, taste as sweet as pure cane sugar?
His thoughts had to stop, even if the throbbing between his legs didn’t. Her spirited unpredictability both fascinated and annoyed him, while her golden hair and smile drew him like a lighthouse in a storm. Damn it, how not to think of Lilli? He wanted her more each day. Denying that fact was like denying the tides of the ocean. Impossible in the face of such tangible proof.
Drex searched his trunk for the bottle of brandy he’d been saving for a sleepless night. Staring at Lilli’s door, trying not to remember it had no lock, Drex took a swig from the bottle and vowed not to stop until he’d emptied it.
* * *
Christina laughed into the crisp morning as she watched some of the men scramble about the ship’s rigging. The farther they climbed, the more they looked like rats fleeing a cat’s teeth. Oh, but the freedom. She could imagine the exhilaration of ascending into the heavens, witnessing the origins of the wind, feeling nature unencumbered against her skin.