Free I Married the Duke by Katharine Ashe Page A

Absalom Fletcher. So Fletcher had found another victim. A younger victim.
    He turned to the door. “I will take your warning under advisement.”
    He left her then to his bedchamber alone. Having stolen his peace and sanity, yet offering him nothing with which to remedy those losses, she did not protest his departure.
    H OWEVER MUCH SHE needed the sleep, Arabella could not remain in his bed. Only one wicked temptation might have enticed her to linger: the opportunity to fill her senses with his scent that made her a little dizzy. But the bed linens bore only the mild scent of soap.
    She had shared beds with her sisters enough to know that the scent of a person clung. She loved curling up in the sage-smelling warmth Eleanor left on the pillows when she rose at dawn to study and write. Ravenna’s spot in the bed was always tangled and crumpled, strands of wild, Gypsy-dark hair mingled with Beast’s silky black hairs and occasionally a mangled rope toy lost in the coverlets. Many times alone upon her plain cot in the servants’ quarters of whatever house she had served, Arabella had imagined being cuddled beneath the old four-poster with her sisters, keeping warm from the winter and laughing. Always laughing, even in the depths of poverty and want, for that was love.
    She had slept in Captain Andrew’s bed, yet his scent was absent.
    Mr. Miles served her breakfast in the day cabin but informed her that due to the rain her clothing was not yet dry. When he left, she bound herself up in the coat he had offered her the night before and carried her aching head to the infirmary. Sailors cast her curious glances as she went. She hurried by. They’d all no doubt seen considerably more than the hem of a woman’s chemise. I am a sailor, Miss Caulfield .
    None of the sailors would bother her. The captain would not allow it.
    Only he posed a threat. Everything he did and said made her feel confused and out of control. For the first time in years of determination and work, she was behaving recklessly, standing in the rain, drinking brandy, and sleeping in a man’s bed—and wanting to do it all.
    She did not want him to touch her again. He was autocratic and arrogant and he made her uncomfortably hot all over when he looked at her. Always before, men’s attentions had repulsed her. But when she had awoken to his caress, she wanted to turn into his touch.
    The cabin boy Joshua had left off his vigil, and she went alone down the companionway and along the orlop deck to the infirmary. The door was open a crack. She pushed it wide and halted.
    The skinny youth from three days earlier stood above the medicine cabinet. The drawers were open. His hand was clutched around a brown bottle prominently marked with skull and crossbones.
    She moved toward him. “What do you have there?”
    He tucked the bottle into his pocket. “Begging your pardon, miss. Doc said I was to take this medicine—”
    “He could not have meant for you to dispense it yourself, or for you to take that bottle in particular.”
    The youth looked hard at her, his attention dropping to her chest.
    The ring . She had not thought to tuck it away. She had only been thinking of her ridiculous infatuation.
    “Set down the bottle,” she said.
    “Give me that ring, then, miss, and I’ll give you this bottle.” His attention darted to the door. No one had been on the orlop deck when she came, and the winds blew especially hard today. The ship creaked furiously and the animals in the hold were restless and noisy. If she screamed it was entirely possible no one would hear her.
    “I’ll leave the bottle, I promise,” he said. “I don’t mean any harm, miss. Just gimme the ring.” His eyes looked wild above his sunken cheeks. Perhaps he was ill. Perhaps he was merely starving. Perhaps desperation drove him to this.
    She understood desperation .
    “Return the bottle to the case and leave now,” she said, “and I will pretend you have not tried to bribe me.”
    His