Free The Pirate and the Puritan by Cheryl Howe Page A

pillow.
Her placid features tightened in pain when his caress found a lump the size of
an egg protruding from the back of her skull. He gingerly removed his hands
from her hair and reached for the box. No new scratch marred the sturdy wood to
discern whether she had found the heavy object or it found her.
    Whether she’d managed to examine
the contents of the box before it hit her on the head mattered not. Felicity
Kendall was finally at his mercy. She would answer his many questions, not the
other way around. God help them both.
    ***
     
    Felicity shook herself from a
deep sleep. Even before she could pry open her eyes, she knew he was
gone. How long she’d drifted in and out of an endless nightmare of pain, her
head throbbing, her stomach pitching, provided as great a mystery as who he
was. Strong fingers massaging her temples and a deep voice coaxing her from her
misery remained the only tangible evidence that her savior had been flesh and
blood instead of a figment of her desperate imagination.
    She blinked, trying to clear her
vision. Instead of the whitewashed ceiling of her bedroom, uniform planks,
varnished and shiny, loomed over her head. The splashing of water and her
nausea brought her back to the nightmare of her voyage to Barbados. But another
ship’s name loomed in the back of her mind.
    Sunlight filled the room with a
hazy afternoon glow. She must be seriously ill to sleep so far past dawn.
Idleness was a sin. Though not serious enough to earn a fine or physical
punishment, a reprimand in front of the congregation would be in order. She let
her eyes drift shut again, relishing her last moments of decadence. As
miserable as she felt, lying abed until late morning felt oh, so good. No
wonder it was a sin.
    Reluctantly, she stretched, and
discovered her stockings glided over what had to be silk. Not that she had much
experience with the expensive material. The most she’d ever seen had been…
    Tattered glimpses of how she’d
come to be lying between silk sheets on a moving ship trickled to the forefront
of her thinking like an unwanted fever. After her father had gone to bed, she
had discovered the name of Lord Christian’s vessel in the New England Company’s
ledgers. Sneaking from her father’s house and finding the ship had gone so
smoothly. Her mission had been a resounding success until she had hidden in the
armoire after hearing someone board the Sea Mistress and soon discovered
she couldn’t let herself out. Her imprisonment had turned from a slight
inconvenience to the incarnation of hell as she woke to the mad pitching of the
ship.
    She took a deep, shuddering
breath, grateful to be alive, and realized her gown had been removed, along
with her corset. How she’d come to be without them presented another mystery
she must solve. She flung out her hand and groped for a pillow to cover her
face. If she could just go back to sleep until the throbbing in her head
subsided, she could figure out her predicament later.
    The feather-stuffed silk shut out
the light but didn’t squelch the rapid flood of her returning memory. She was
on Lord Christian Andrews’s ship. Under full sail no less.
    She removed the pillow and
listened. The motion of the ship had steadied and waves lapped against the hull
instead of beating the sides like fists. No one else seemed to be in the cabin
she occupied. To be sure of that, she forced herself to sit up. As soon as she
lifted her heavy head off the pillow, splintering pain tossed bright fragments
of light in front of her eyes. She squeezed her eyelids shut against the
explosion.
    Just as a sob tightened her
throat, a loud screech announced the opening of the portal. The sound delivered
another unbearable slice of pain. Knowing someone entered the room forced
Felicity to open her eyes in a squint. For the first time, she caught a clear
glimpse of the man who had played her nurse. She quickly darted her gaze away
before she had to meet his eyes. Good lord, he'd undressed