Viola Carlyle was shameless.
Overnight her prickly combativeness transformed into sloe-eyed glances and lowered lashes. Jin might be amused if she weren’t so good at it. Convincing. As though she truly wished for his attentions. She enacted the role of a demure female throwing out lures like an actress trained for the stage, but with a great deal more finesse and the advantage of a pretty face and perfectly shaped body.
The body he was now able to fully appreciate again.
She discarded the sacklike coat, donning instead a fitted waistcoat that hugged her breasts and narrow waist and emphasized the delicacy of her form. The sash slung from shoulder to hip bore a single small pistol, the hilt of a short dagger pointing at an angle designed to draw a man’s attention where it should not linger. The ungainly hat went too, replaced by a brimmed cap when she was atop and nothing when she was belowdecks. Her thick tresses, bound only in a queue as he had first seen on the dock weeks earlier, shone like satin in the sunshine and tangled in the wind, brushing across her lips.
She did not make the mistake of giving up her command to him. She maintained firm control over her ship and her crewmen’s activities to a reasonable degree, leaving to Jin his regular duties. But now she proffered her commands without taunting or insults, instead with modulated tones that suggested she had every faith in him to carry out his responsibilities.
She was beguiling, gracious, and not in the least bit obsequious or overly retiring. She was damnably alluring, like a gently bred female withholding favors she would eagerly relinquish to a man worthy of her-but only that man.
She was a conniving, manipulative she-devil.
More than anything as yet, all of it went further toward convincing him that she belonged in English high society. Beauty and subtle flirtation combined with a quiet, confident mastery of her realm marked her as the aristocrat she was meant to be-her mother’s daughter if not her father’s.
But for two decades Jin had played games far more perilous. He knew how to handle this. He kept his distance.
She made it difficult. She began taking her meals with the men. When he was atop, she made it her business to be there as well. She clearly believed proximity was the key to her success. He found himself walking away from her more often than he liked. No man dictated his actions, and certainly no woman. Not for twenty years. But her nearness distracted him. Too much.
Following the clouds and high winds, then the single sunny day on which he had agreed to the wager, rain finally came. He was settling into his cabin preparing for bed when Becoua appeared.
“Clouds parted a bit, sir. There’s a few stars showin’. Thought you’d like to know, seein’ as the captain’s asleep already.”
“Thank you, Mr. Maalouf.”
Becoua turned, then paused. “Master Jin, Captain’s smelling of flowers lately, ain’t she? Perfumey like?”
“I had not noticed.”
Becoua met his gaze with a bemused question in his own.
Jin shook his head. “Back to work, sailor.”
The boatswain grunted and shuffled off. Jin passed a hand across his face, then gripped the back of his neck. He must assess the ship’s direction by the stars. It might not clear again for days.
She stored the sextant in her cabin.
She was there now. He had known it since she walked past his door earlier, trailing the scent of flowers mingled with rich herbs. She had indeed taken to wearing perfume, an East Indian attar of roses and golden champa. A heady, lush fragrance that mingled with her woman’s scent and even at a few paces away seemed to reach out and touch a man precisely where he most needed it.
Blatant.
Shameless.
And it was having its effect. The rest of the ship smelled like sweat and unwashed men and its master smelled like a lady’s boudoir. Jin now fully regretted eschewing the Boston brothels before embarking upon this journey. With her soft, dark-eyed glances and beguiling scent she had him hard, and hard put not to teach her a lesson in what it meant to tease a man who had gone too long without a woman.
If he was frustrated, her crew members must be as well. Becoua’s confusion proved it.
Irresponsible she-devil. Or perhaps merely insane as he had first thought.
He went the few steps to her cabin door and knocked. It opened on a woman as unlike a shipmaster as could be. Her unbound hair fell about her face in waves like costly Russian mink. She wore only a thin white shirt, its laces untied and parted over the cleft of her breasts, and breeches. An open book rested in her palm.
Slowly, her wide, hazy eyes seemed to focus. Her lashes flickered, a rose veil suffused her cheeks, and for a moment she looked flustered. Then she lowered the book and offered him a feminine smile with a mile of calculation behind it.
“Calling so late, Mr. Seton. What a pleasure.”
“Do you always answer the door to your sailors dressed like that?” He gestured to the creamy expanse of soft womanhood visible at her parted shirt, perfect swells of temptation.
He was.
Tempted.
One corner of her smile lifted. “Not at all. I was expecting you.”
“You’re more likely to drive me to jump ship with further insults and transparent bravado than with this.”
“There are two ways I can win this wager.”
“There are two ways I can as well.” He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb. “You will not endure my indifference for long. Your pride will get the better of you. You will throw me off the ship out of sheer vexation.”
“That might be the case if you were actually indifferent.” Her gaze slipped to his mouth where it lingered momentarily, then down his chest. Slowly, like a caress. And his body felt it. Like a caress.
She met his regard again. “But you aren’t.”
He crossed his arms with careful nonchalance and allowed himself to grin, but he knew why he was trapping his arms. His hands. “You would like to imagine so.”
“The other day, standing in this corridor,” she said softly, a seduction of sweet, rich femininity, “you wanted to kiss me.”
“If I had wanted to kiss you, Viola Carlyle,” he replied just as quietly, “I would have.”
“You’re lying.”
He did not respond, merely regarded her as though she hadn’t insulted him, a glint of pure confidence in his eyes. Viola’s mouth was unbearably dry. She wanted a cup of wine in her hand and Jinan Seton out of her sight. This charade was unendurable. The more she was obliged to bat her lashes and stand close beside him on deck wearing considerably less than she usually wore to bed, the more difficult it was to convince herself it was all an act. She had answered the door in her present state of undress because she’d been attempting to read a book she loved as a girl, and instead spent the time imagining how it would feel if he were to put his lips on hers.
“What are you reading?” He asked it as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“A book,” she snapped, his perfect, breathtaking mouth and arms and everything far too close. “Is this conversation you’re attempting to make?”
“Ah. The return of the shrew.” He grinned, sending her belly into tingling somersaults. “I may leap overboard yet.”
“I can only hope.”
He had the audacity to chuckle. “Come to think of it, I prefer this attitude to the other. I appreciate honesty in a sailor.”
“Don’t you mean in a woman?”
His eyes seemed to shadow. “In anyone.”
But those words were not his thoughts; she saw it in his face and knew beyond doubt that this man had been betrayed by a woman and it had wounded him.
Abruptly beset by a most pressing urge, then Viola did a very foolish thing. She reached forward and placed her hand on his chest and heard herself murmur, “I am always honest.” She was in this. Despite herself she wished to be near him, and to touch him.
Beneath her palm his chest rose and fell sharply, but his voice remained even.
“You are playacting a role that neither of us is enjoying. Put an end to this wager. It is childish and you know you will lose.”
But she didn’t feel like a child. The way he looked at her with such crystal intensity even as he remained aloof made her feel very much like a woman. She should remove her hand from his body. Beneath fine linen-far too fine for a common sailor-he was all contoured muscle.
“What if I don’t care to lose?” Her fingers spread and she felt him, his heartbeat and heat, and a soft tension gathered in her. She traced a fingertip to the laces of his shirt and with the smallest movement stroked the linen open.
Skin. Male skin beneath her touch, firm and hot. She pushed the fabric aside, baring hard collarbone and sun-darkened man. Her breaths stuttered. “And if I’m enjoying the wager itself?”
He caught her wrist in a strong grip and slid her hand fully beneath his shirt.
The air sank from her lungs. For a moment he simply held her there, her palm pressed to his skin over his flat nipple. Then he leaned forward, bent his head, and spoke low.
“You needn’t strap me to a mast in order to undress me, Miss Carlyle. I am more than happy to oblige you at any time.”
“Are you?” Dear Mother Mary, he must feel her trembling. She wanted to sink her fingers into him, to order him to oblige immediately. Oh, God, she really wanted to feel him-more. And to feel more of this strange, delicious quickening inside her. She’d never felt it before. Not for any man. Except Aidan, of course. Possibly. Or perhaps not.
What was happening to her?
He whispered at her brow, “Say the word, Captain.”
She stilled. In the close space she could draw into her senses his man’s scent. He smelled so good, intoxicating and familiar and warm. “You do realize you just called me captain?”
The pad of his thumb slipped over the tender center of her wrist.
“I did.” There was a rumble of laughter in his voice. “Fancy that. Must be because I am awaiting an order.”
If she turned her head, their lips would meet. She wanted it more than pride and reason. More than Aidan.
“Why don’t you tell me first what brought you to my cabin door tonight.”
His hand loosened, slipped along her arm, and with a gentleness she never imagined he possessed, he disengaged her from his body.
“The sextant.”
She blinked, knowing her cheeks were flushed, and knowing from the clear certainty in his eyes that he knew he had affected her.
“Well, you might have said that before.” She turned into her cabin, hiding her burning cheeks, and set down her book to take up the navigation instrument.
“It amused me to tease you,” he said as she came to him again.
“I’m certain it did.” She lifted a brow, pretending she wasn’t perfectly aware that he was perfectly aware of the truth, and pretending the truth simply was not the truth-that for a moment in his hold she’d been a puddle and might still be if he hadn’t released her. “The clouds have cleared?”
“Some.” He accepted the sextant and glanced at the table she’d set the book on. “You are reading Herodotus.”
It was not a question. A statement, rather, without inflection, but there was some hint of surprise in it. He brought his gaze to hers, and the hot, throbbing tingles started all over again.
“A history based on his.” She wished her shirt were laced to the throat. She wished she had on her canvas coat buttoned to her chin. She wished she were anywhere but beneath this man’s clear eyes. She wasn’t made for this sort of confusion, wanting to touch him though she loved another. “Do you know Herodotus’s history?”
He nodded, his brow still taut.
“Well,” she said as evenly as she could manage, “then there’s something we have in common other than this wager. How remarkable.” She forced what she hoped was a demure smile onto her lips.
He lifted the sextant in a gesture. “Thank you.” He turned and moved away. Viola stared at his back until he disappeared into the dark of the gun deck.
Fionn always told her she was too headstrong. With a twinkle in his eyes and a smile, the baron had called her reckless. In this, both of her fathers had been right.
“What d’you think?” Mattie leaned his thick elbows on the rail and scratched his whiskered jaw. The sea stretching beyond was dark and tipped with whitecaps, the sky leaden, the wind briny and damp.
Jin lifted the telescope and studied the vessel on the gray horizon. From its movement, erratic and slow, it was surely adrift. Its sails were furled, one mast split to the deck, and an unfamiliar banner of red and white flapped in the wind. A square-rigged brig not unlike the April Storm, but much larger and heavy in the draft. A stranded merchant ship not entirely stripped of her cargo. Pirate prey, or not?
“We cannot take the chance,” he said quietly.
“Becoua!” The master of the April Storm shouted from the quarterdeck, her voice beguiling even at full volume. “Make a course for her, slow and steady.”
Beguiling, like her half-bared breasts and wide, questioning eyes, and slender hand exploring his skin.
He turned and from midship met her gaze. He must convince her to leave the alien vessel alone. But that would require private conversation. After the incident at her cabin door, he was honest enough with himself to admit that getting close to her again would not be wise. For three days he had avoided it.
She had kept her distance as well. Which suggested to him that it might be useful to alter course in his pursuit of Viola Carlyle’s return to England. He might achieve his goal through another method.
She was not immune to him. In the lamp-lit doorway as she touched him, he had watched her body respond. If she had known it, seen the taut linen over the risen peaks of her breasts, she might not have recovered her bravado so swiftly.
But perhaps she had known it.
She captained a ship like a man, read books university-educated gentlemen read, yet was the most damnably enticing woman Jin had known. In that doorway, with her eyes sparkling in the golden light and her soft lips smiling, he had nearly done what he knew he should not. But perhaps that would be a quicker route to getting her home. A woman under the influence of desire often did whatever the man she desired wished. He had learned this early in life, from his mother’s behavior with his father. Later he had occasionally used that lesson to his advantage.
He did not wish to lie to Viola Carlyle. She was not what she appeared on the surface, not what she wished others to see. For a moment in that doorway, he had seen something quite different in her dark eyes. Vulnerability. And confusion about her desire.
If he were so inclined, he could take advantage of that. But he was no longer that man. He would rather she came without lies.
“You ain’t gonna convince her.”
Jin’s head swung around.
Mattie screwed up his lips. “She ain’t gonna listen if you tell her not to sidle up to that boat.”
“Then perhaps you should tell her. She likes you, I have noticed.”
Mattie guffawed, his cheeks shading crimson. Jin shook his head and returned his gaze to the horizon.
By the time they were within a half league of the vessel he could no longer delay. Setting his shoulders, he went to her post at the quarterdeck.
“This is unwise.” He scanned the sea anew.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
“It is my duty to offer it when I see the necessity.”
“What necessity? She’s obviously abandoned. We have nothing to fear.”
“It could be deception. To lure you.”
She cast him a glance, tilting her brows high. “Oh? A tactic you know? Practiced in your pirating days, no doubt.” Her tone remained perfectly sweet and her thick lashes dipped over wide dark eyes. He had to grin. The combination of insulting harpy and demure temptress suited her.
Her lashes flickered again, then she snapped her gaze away. He followed her averted face, unable not to. Here was innocence and allure wrapped in sailor’s swagger, and he was a fool not to have seen this danger the moment he encountered her on the dock in Boston. In twenty years he had not stood on a ship’s deck and felt his heartbeat quicken. Now it did.
“If you wish to make Trinidad within a sennight,” he said, a roughness to his voice he did not intend, “you will be well served to sail on. It is the safer course.”
She set her fists on her hips. “What is it? I can’t believe the Pharaoh is concerned over the possibility of a little skirmish, so it must be something else.” She held her attention to the horizon. She lowered her voice. “Afraid I’ll die and you’ll lose your prize to carry back to the earl?”
“Yes.”
The wind whipped her hair about her cheeks and she brushed it away.
“Well, that is a possibility you will simply be obliged to live with.”
“I cannot.”
Her hands slipped from her hips and her slender shoulders dipped. Without a word she walked away.
The strange vessel’s crew had clearly tried to give fight. Canvas hung torn from the spars and shredded on the deck, black powder marks and cannon shot wounds gaping in the main deck and rails. Most telling, the foremast was snapped, leaning out over the bow at a sickening tilt. Four crumpled bodies littered the deck, too few men to mark it as anything but a merchant vessel, sailors sufficient only to keep her on course. If there were no others below, the rest of the crew might have been pressed into service. Better living the life of a pirate until the next port than dying on the spot. Jin had seen plenty of sailors make that choice.
“Rum business,” Mattie grunted as he came alongside him at the rail. “What’s she gonna do?” He gestured with a jerk of his meaty jowl toward Viola standing amidships below, calling out orders to her crewmen to maneuver their approach.
“Go over there and invite them to tea, no doubt.” Jin took a deep breath and descended to the main deck. He went to her side. “Don’t do it.”
“Be silent, Seton, or I will relieve you of duty.”
“You hired me for this purpose.”
“I hired you under false pretenses. Gui, fetch my sword! Sam, Frenchie, lower the boat. Then both of you and Stew, Gabe, and Ayo come with me.”
Sailors were gathering at the rail, peering onto the other ship’s deck.
“Then allow me,” Jin said quietly.
“I said be silent.”
“A captain should remain with her ship.”
“And leave all the fun to others?”
“Fun? There are dead men on that deck.”
She glanced down at the boy. He proffered her a thick-bladed cutlass and she strapped it to her belt. “You stay here, Gui.”
The cabin boy scowled and glowered nearly as convincingly as Mattie. She ruffled his hair, then loosened the strap of the pistol on her sash. “Men, secure the sheets and lower the boat.”
Jin kept his voice low amid the bustle. “What sort of sailor puts her life at risk simply to amuse herself?”
“You’re starting to sound like my old nurse.”
“Perhaps because you are behaving like a rash child who knows not what is best for her.”
She turned to him fully then, pure determination in her eyes.
“I got along well enough on the sea for fifteen years without you, Jinan Seton. I’ve no doubt I will get along for at least another fifteen in the same manner.” She pushed through her crewmen toward the gangway.
He followed, cursing under his breath. She made it to the ladder first and swung down it to the boat below, perfectly agile. The boat rocked on the striated swells, sailors set oars to water, and they headed toward the immobile ship. They neared and Sam tossed up a hooked rope. Jin grabbed it first, secured it and went up, then threw the ladder down.
She climbed aboard and stopped middeck, surveying the scene.
“Damned pirates,” she muttered.
Jin moved to a prone figure and knelt. Dried blood matted the man’s hair and stained his shirtfront burned with pistol fire, and blood caked the blade of the sword trapped in his waxy grip. He straightened. “Three days at most. No carrion birds as yet.”
“Too far from land.” She crossed herself, her lips moving in a silent prayer, then said aloud, “No one is looking for them.”
“Don’t be a fool.” Prickling heat stroked at his shoulders. “Someone is always looking.”
“Why didn’t they scuttle her or take her for parts?”
“Because they are hiding below until the ideal moment when they will spring forth and kill us all and seize your ship? Just a guess.”
“Coward.”
He simply stared at her.
She grinned. Unremarkably, and despite circumstances, it went straight to his groin. She was, apparently, quite fearless. And quite beautiful when she smiled with impish challenge.
“Boys,” her rich alto cajoled her men, “who wants to go below with me and see what these poor souls were cooking for dinner before the good Lord took them to fairer fields?”
Jin moved toward the companionway, the others remaining motionless-wisely. She came behind him.
“Not too skittish to take a peek now, hm, Seton?” She was right at his back, their footsteps echoing into the deck below.
“Call me a coward again, Miss Carlyle, and I will shoot you myself and endure the earl’s chastisements.”
She laughed, a full-throated, musical chortle. She was brazen, he must give her that. And entirely unafraid.
Ducking their heads, they came onto the gun deck. The air in the narrow space was oppressively close, the gunwales shut tight, and no sign of the cannons having been fired. No bodies were anywhere in sight here, but a stack of empty cages gaped open at the base of the bowsprit.
“They took the live animals but not all the cargo, and none of the rigging or canvas. Not even the water.”
He nodded. “In a hurry. Moving on to another goal, perhaps.”
“Then you don’t believe any longer that they’re waiting to jump out at us like ghouls? I am so sorry for your disappointment.”
A grin tugged at his lips. “Perhaps I will have to kill you myself after all.”
“You try it.” She swung around the rail and continued down into the hold. Jin found himself following again.
“Not interested in checking the master’s cabin?”
“Don’t need to. He was on deck.”
“How do you know that?”
“I knew him.”
Forcing his gaze away from the fall of satin hair down her back, he scanned the broad space only half-filled with barrels and canvas sacks, some broken open and their contents scattered. No humans here, either. “Who was he?”
“Jason Pettigrew. A friend of my father.” She set her fists on her hips. “Fionn captained a brig for him-not this one-right before the war. Jason always said-” She broke off and lines appeared between her eyes.
“Were you aboard that ship?” he said to encourage her to continue.
“Fionn nearly always took me along.”
“From the beginning?”
“Yes. Is this an interview, Seton? Should I sit and narrate my life for you here? Or perhaps you could simply read my diaries, although you would no doubt find them too tame for your tastes.”
“I suspect they would be as fascinating as their author.”
Her gaze snapped to him. But there was no scowl on her face, only a bright-eyed wariness. She pivoted and sprang up the steps.
He climbed up behind her, tracing the curve of her hips with his gaze. “Shall I have the men transfer the cargo?”
“Only the fresh water. We’ve sufficient supplies.”
“And the bodies?”
She cast him a quick glance, surprise in the violet. He held her gaze evenly. If she wished to believe him inhumane, at one time she would not have been far off the mark.
“Tell the boys to cut the canvas and line from this ship to wrap them. We’ll bury them at dusk.”
“Aye aye.”
She unstrapped her pistol and cutlass and handed them to Sam. Then she unbuttoned her waistcoat and kicked off her shoes. She went to the rail, testing the draw of the dagger in her sash.
Jin frowned. “What are you doing?”
With a half grin that sent heat straight to his groin, she dove into the sea below.