Free I Married the Duke by Katharine Ashe Page B

eyes again skipped between the door and her ring.
    She extended her hand. “Give me the bottle,” she said in her most authoritative governess voice.
    The sailor slipped his hand into his pocket and withdrew a slender blade.
    Her throat caught.
    He grabbed her wrist and pushed her to the wall. His body was wiry but he was tall and surprisingly strong.
    “If you won’t trade, I’ll have both.” The blade gleamed close to her face.
    “What foolishness is this?” she managed to utter, nerves spinning through her. His grip bruised her arm and his hand holding the dirk grappled at her shirtfront. He could cut her even without intending to. “We are at sea. Your crime will be discovered immediately.”
    He yanked. The ribbon sliced into her neck. She threw her weight into her leg and thrust up her knee between his thighs.
    He staggered back, gasping for breaths. He opened his fist and the ring winked like blood in his palm. She dodged for the door. Face twisted, he staggered toward her.
    “ T HEY’RE DOING WHAT?” Luc squinted across the whitecaps. Sunlight glinted off dozens of white sails three hundred yards portside, casting the nearby naval vessel in a glorious glow.
    “Standin’ about with the sheep, Cap’n.” Joshua chewed on a straw, his little thumbs hooked into his suspenders like a farmer.
    Across the water Luc could not clearly see faces yet, but he knew well the cocky stance of the man posed proudly atop the quarterdeck of the ship opposite. Tony Masinter had been the best of first lieutenants and of friends. Luc could not have wished for a finer man to take his place as the master of the Victory . But why in Hades his old ship was bearing down on his new one now was anyone’s guess.
    “Cap’n?” Joshua said.
    Luc glanced at the deck of his brig. It was peculiarly spare of sailors, given the company that had appeared on the horizon an hour earlier. It wasn’t every day a hundred-twelve-gun naval frigate escorted a humble merchant ship into port. But it seemed as though Tony intended to do just that.
    “Twenty of the men, you say?”
    “P’raps more. But I’ve only got twenty fingers.” Joshua shrugged.
    Luc turned his back on the other ship, leaned against the rail and folded his arms. “Why do you suppose the men are doing such an odd thing, Josh?”
    “P’raps on account of the women’s flimsies hanging from the beams, sir.”
    Luc stood up straight. “Women’s flimsies?”
    “There’s one bit, Cap’n, ain’t nothin’ more than a scrap of nothin’, but it’s got them all castin’ wagers as to who gets it. That is, if she forgets to take it with her when we make port, you see.” The boy winked.
    “I see. Thank you, Joshua.” He strode toward the companionway. He should send Miles to see to the matter. But he’d be damned if his crewmen and blasted steward would ogle her undergarments while he had to content himself with heated fantasies.
    What in the devil had Miles been thinking to hang her clothing to dry in the livestock pen? Warmest location aboard, hell’s thunder .
    Halfway to the hold he heard her scream.
    Sailors’ heads came up around him.
    “Orlop deck, sir,” one of them said.
    He leaped down the stairs and bolted toward Stewart’s office, men in his wake. No time to load a pistol. He reached for his sword and slammed the infirmary door open.
    With her back pressed to the wall and color flushed across her cheeks, she wielded a bone saw in one hand and a pewter jug in the other like a Valkyrie, with regal fearlessness. A yard away, the sailor pointed a dirk at her neck. His other fist was clutched tight, but between the awkward bones shone gold and red.
    “I told you they would come.” Her voice was strong but compassionate, as though her pale throat were not inches from the lad’s blade. “You should have listened to me.”
    He was one of the new men that Luc’s quartermaster had hired on at Plymouth. Barely old enough to raise a beard, now he stared at