Free On a Long Ago Night by Susan Sizemore

and said
    something appropriate—though she didn't see them and had no idea
    what she said. Her thoughts were much too far away for that.

    "You can't be separating us!" Derrick protested to the guard. "I
    can't go to the Citadel. It's a prison. I've heard what happens to
    foreigners there. Who'll take care of me there? Honoria, help me!"
    "No one will harm you," she promised, burying her own fear
    under a briskly confident facade. Derrick had regaled a drawing
    room full of fascinated listeners with tales of wicked corsair
    practices on their last evening in Majorca, so she knew how
    prisoners languished in the dungeons and cells of the Citadel while
    they awaited ransom. Those with no hope of ransom were claimed
    as property of the Bey—forced into work gangs, or auctioned off
    for the Bey's profit. Derrick had passed over the details of the dire
    fates of women prisoners, and Honoria refused to dwell on the
    things he had only hinted at. Derrick needed her, and that was all
    that mattered.
    "Hush, my dear." She ran a hand through his hair. "All will
    be well. Let the man help you to stand. I'll help to hold you up."
    "He can stand on his own. He is a man, isn't he, fox-hair?"
    Honoria had not been aware that the Spaniard had followed
    his guards into the crowded hold. She gave up trying to cope with
    the feverish Derrick as he flailed ineffectually at the man who was
    attempting to help him stand. Indignation boiled out of her at the
    Spaniard's callous words. She rounded on the true source of their
    troubles, spinning so quickly that her spectacles were knocked
    askew.
    "Leave him alone!" she demanded of their captor. "Can't you
    see he's ill?"
    The corsair took a moment to straighten her glasses on her
    nose. "He'll live."
    She'd been shocked by the effrontery of the gesture, but more
    than shock raced through her when he took her arm. Reaction
    blinded her to everything but his tactile presence; her universe
    spun around and around, and she and he were the only things in
    that universe for a moment.
    "Honoria!" Derrick called, casting out a lifeline with his
    voice. "I need you to care for me!"
    "But who will care for you, fox-hair?"
    She fought to ignore the Spaniard's sarcasm and concentrate
    on the voice that reminded her of duty, of truth, and of pure
    unselfish love. She was surprised at how hard it was to drag her
    attention from the threatening sensuality of Diego Moresco.
    "Coming, my love!" she called, but she could not look away
    from the Spaniard. "Take your hands off me, swine!" The words
    were spoken with indignation, but no great conviction. Did he hear
    it? Did he know how her pulse was racing? Was that amusement
    glittering in his honey-colored eyes, along with a banked fire of
    temper?
    "Hand," he corrected. "And I'm barely touching you."
    " But the point is, you are touching me ."
    "Perhaps you should get used to being touched."
    Honoria bridled with indignation; it hid a shiver of fearful
    anticipation. "By you?"
    He tilted his head to one side. "By men in general." He gave
    a slight shrug. "A slave goes with who she is told."
    She tore her arm out of his clasp and faced him with her
    hands on her hips. "What are you talking about?" she demanded
    angrily. Her knees were shaking and she feared she would sink to
    the deck in terror, but she did not show it, would not show it.
    Not to this creature who was the dregs of the dregs of the
    Mediterranean. "We are to be ransomed. I wrote the letters you
    wanted. You'll be paid the price you demanded within a fortnight."
    He shrugged again. Suddenly she could read nothing in his
    face. His eyes became blank, hard amber. He jerked a thumb at
    Derrick and at Huseby, who had come to stand by Honoria's side.
    "They go to the Citadel. You are to be sold."
    "Help me," Derrick said, lunging away from his guard to
    clasp Honoria's hands. "Don't let them take me to the Citadel. You
    promised you would help me."

    Honoria looked at her hands. They felt as cold and numb