Free Across a Moonlit Sea by Marsha Canham Page B

substance to her answer. Her face felt as if it were on fire. Her hands were curled into fists, cold as ice, and her limbs were aching from the strain of trying to keep him at bay.
    “You have it,” she whispered. “You have my word.”
    “No tricks?”
    “No tricks.”
    He allowed a crooked smile to underline the warning in his finger as he lifted his hand from her throat and traced a smooth line along the curve of her lower lip. His other hand released her wrists and he was struck by another image as he straightened: that of her lying exactly as she was now atop the clutter of papers and charts, naked, with her hair unbound and spread like dark silk beneath her.
    His flesh jumped noticeably and he had to suppose, after being at sea so long and having come so close to death, anything female, supple, and breathing would have had the same effect. A purely reflexive response, comparable to a thirsty man’s reaction upon stumbling into a pool of fresh water.
    He left her to struggle upright on her own and walked back to the sea chest. He found a pair of relatively clean hose and, testing his sanity along with Beau’s word of honor, finished dressing with his back to her. He did not bother rebandaging his calf and barely glanced at the raw wound before pulling on his boots. The pain helped to clear his head and distract his body, and after thrusting his arms through the sleeves of a leather doublet, he rebuckled his belt, raked his hands through his hair, and was all business again.
    Beau had used the same time to gather her faltering wits about her once more. Her body still seethed with the impression of his, her skin was stretched so tight in places, she wanted to scratch herself to ease the tension. Her breasts in particular were as prickly as pincushions. Her thighs ached from being nearly split asunder, and the bridge of flesh between felt oddly hot and runny, as if the sensation of melting she had felt earlier had not all been in her imagination.
    “I’m going up on deck,” Dante said casually, eyeing her from across the cabin. “Feel free to join me when you have finished here.”
    He stepped out into the passageway, ducking his head to clear the low lintel, but only moved a pace or two into the gloom before stopping and cocking his head back to listen.
    He did not have long to wait. The sound of Beau’s curse and the smashing of a brass candlestick hurled at the door assured him her temper had not been permanently sup- pressed. Why it should make him smile, though, he had no idea.

Chapter 5

     T he
Virago
managed to stave off the pull of the sea for another ten hours. Although it was a fierce race against time and nature, the crews, working together, winched six of the monstrous demi-cannon on board the
Egret
The added weight—nearly twelve tons—settled the hull half a strake deeper in the water, but under Pitt’s guidance, balance was maintained and would even afford steadier handling in rough seas. A quantity of powder and shot was salvaged as well, though the stores had been badly depleted in the fight with the India guards. There were few personal items worth rescuing, most having been lost to the bilges and damaged by salt water. One large white mouser—Clarence—adamantly refused to leave his hidey-hole and it took an hour-long search by Pitt and two others to flush him out. When he emerged, his fur more black than white, he refused to be carried, but strutted, his back arched and claws extended in disdain, along one of the grappling lines that spanned the two ships.
    Including the cat, there were forty-one survivors removed from the
Virago.
When the guns were shifted andwarnings issued that it would be unsafe to remain aboard her much longer, they filed slowly across the wide planks and, to a man, remained by the Egret’s rails, their faces taut, their bodies rigid, as they watched Pitt and Dante make a final search through the wreckage on deck. It was Simon Dante, with his ship groaning and