Under the Lash Read online

  With the abhorrent visions of what she had just witnessed racing through her mind, Cassie did exactly what she had been expressly told not to do. First, she changed into her rattiest dress, knowing she wouldn’t want to sully any of the nicer ones, and filled the largest valise she thought she could carry – and not with the most practical of items at that, preferring to take remembrances and mementos from her father rather than the warm cloak and more sturdy shoes she was feeling the acute absence of right now.

  Luckily for her, as the Don lived a more countrified life here, away from civilization, and her maid, Mary, hadn’t made the long voyage yet, there was little need to sneak around as she slipped boldly out the front door, although she still did her best to make sure that no one saw her, especially as she was out in the open as she crossed the courtyard.

  Once she found the entrance to the path she sought at the edge of the jungle–like woods, she started at the sound of some wild animal or bird, plastering herself against the side of the tree. She knew she would end up somewhere near the beautiful beach she’d found while wandering about on her own one day. But she had neglected to bring a lantern, and she wasn’t really sure that that wasn’t a good thing, since she had neglected to notice that the night was intermittently overcast and she was only given occasional glimpses of the shoreline as she was headed down a steepish hill. At least she could smell the water and knew she was headed in the right direction.

  The problem was that she didn’t really have a plan as to what to do once she got there. She headed there because in the short time that she had been on the island, it had become her haven away from the house she was rapidly coming to hate, but she only knew the one way in or out. And regardless of where she ended up, she was trapped on an island that her stepfather governed. Her only hope was to stow away on a ship bound for somewhere – anywhere – but she knew that none was in residence at the moment because Duque Gregorio had mentioned that they would have to wait for the next ship to arrive to post the letters with instructions for the staff at both of their houses that her Mother had written recently.

  For the moment, once she felt sand shifting beneath her feet, she stayed relatively close to the path that had lead her here, allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness. But as soon as she realized that she’d been staring at more than the empty cove, she turned as quickly and quietly as she could, knowing that it was even more important that she remain undiscovered, considering what she’d already had the misfortune of seeing.

  A large ship – larger by half again than the one on which they had sailed from England – had slipped silently into the unprotected cove and a boat had already landed not three hundred feet from her, its men scurrying about like rats, whispering harshly to each other only when it was absolutely necessary. Not a light was lit on the entire vessel, and this behavior had even the innocent Cassie alarmed. Her fears were confirmed when a large party of ruffians gathered and lit huge torches, then began marching towards what she was concerned was the exact path she was standing next to. It was then that she could see the skull and crossbones flying high and proud at the top of the mast of the ship where it lay anchored just off shore, and she knew that her worst fears had been confirmed: pirates were raiding the town, and she was the only one who seemed to be aware of that fact. And if she could see them, they could probably see her, as well.

  She knew she had to get to the church to send up the alarm, but she wasn’t even sure she knew the way there, especially not in the dark and not from this tiny cove. She’d only ever seen it that one time when the Don had shown it to them, and she certainly hadn’t been expecting that she would ever need to find her way back to it. But despite what she’d seen transpire tonight, Cassie had absolutely no interest in losing her mother so soon after watching her father waste way, so she headed uphill, remembering that the church was on a high point, overlooking the harbor.

  She didn’t question her luck, however, when minutes later she ended up exactly where she needed to be. The doors to the church were enormously heavy but unlocked, and she just managed to pull them open enough to slip inside, then felt her way across the altar to a set of stairs that must lead to the bell tower.

  The chamber was small enough that, once she’d climbed to the top of the stairs and taken two steps, the bell pull brushed the top of her head. Cassie reached up to grab onto it, then pulled with all her might, feeling a tremendous sense of relief when the old bell clanged to life, even though she felt herself lifted entirely off her feet as it swung back.

  Until someone’s alarmingly strong arms closed tightly around her midsection, and she found herself relived both of the rope and the ability to do what she wanted most in the world to do at this time – scream – as a huge hand clamped itself over her mouth.

  “Move and I’ll kill you,” came the rough promise from lips that were pressed much too intimately against her ear.

  Chapter Two

  Whoever he was let the rope back up very slowly and gently, so as not to allow the bell to sound again, all the while maintaining a rib cracking hold on Cassie, who despite her earlier bravado had been thoroughly frightened into obeying his rough command, at least for now.

  Seconds later, they were out of the church and she recognized that she was being taken back in much the same direction she had come – although much less tentatively than she had been traveling, as if the person who held her captive knew his way around the island without much thought. Now she was even more terrified than she had been before, and she knew she was in grave danger. If this pirate managed to get her onto his boat, she would be lost forever, in more ways than one. Her reputation would be in ruins. Even if her mother was able to find her somehow, which was highly doubtful, she wouldn’t be considered much worth rescuing by anyone in their society. It would be assumed by all and sundry that her virtue had been compromised, and there would never be any hope of making a good match for her with any gentleman.

  So despite the threat he’d issued, Cassie began to fight for her life, only to find that all her kicking, punching and wiggling got her was a sharp swat on her backside that had her positively howling indignantly from behind that massive hand. His attempt at childish chastisement only encouraged her to redouble her efforts, at least until they were again on soft sand.

  She expected that he would simply cart her over to the boat she had seen them beach. But instead he surprised her by taking a seat on a large boulder that was conveniently situated at the end of the path. Before she could say or do anything, she found herself flipped quite expertly over his lap, her skirts over her head and her bottom bared to receive the righteous correction of his platter sized hand connecting with her bare, ample flesh so fast and furious and exquisitely painfully that it stunned her into a long silence, during which she could only manage to breathe in until she thought her lungs would explode with it.

  And then they did. Her indignant screams ripped through the night, getting her what she thought she wanted. The spanking stopped almost immediately, and she was once again half dragged, half carried by the behemoth at her back, that almost suffocating hand firmly back in place across her mouth.

  It was then that Cassie realized – although her struggles to be released hadn’t gotten her anywhere yet, there was another avenue that she would more than relish pursuing. And that was when she sank her teeth ruthlessly into the only portion of his anatomy that was readily available to her – the tender heel of the hand that had been thrashing her seconds before. And she didn’t let go until he dropped her and she had no choice but to release her painful grip on him, or she would still have been holding on to him.

  “Why you little!”

  Her tangled skirts hampered her efforts at getting away from him although she’d tried to get up to start running as soon as her feet hit the sand. But before she could even begin to get away, he reached out and hauled her back to him by her slim ankle, dragging her through the sand until he could reach under her skirts to her petticoats, easily ripping
a long section of the ruffled material from the well–worn dress with his bare hands while she still tried desperately to scramble onto her feet. Then he casually reached down just as she thought she might have eluded him and had a chance to escape, grabbing a much too intimate hold of her leg just under her knee to drag her back towards him, then standing to tug on her upper arm until he’d lifted her up onto her feet and turned her towards him, smashing her up against his marble slab of a chest and nearly knocking the wind out of her.

  Cassie opened her mouth to give him a thorough verbal comeuppance and announce to him exactly who she was, but she didn’t get a word out before he used the rag he’d relieved her of to shove into her mouth, binding it expertly at the back of her head, rendering her at once both silent and much less deadly.

  When she was turned away from him, he also dealt with her flailing hands, binding them behind her and then pushing her down onto her butt in the wet sand so that he could make embarrassingly short work of doing the same to her feet.

  When he rose, he leaned down and scooped her into his arms, but when she continued to struggle as best she could, he simply shifted her to a very uncomfortable position over his broad, muscular shoulder, where she was most conveniently positioned so that any time she made any movement whatsoever, he could simply reach up and give her a hearty whack on what Cassie considered to be an already well tenderized bottom.

  She was almost more affronted by the idea that this heathen pirate had manhandled her in the ways he had than the idea that she was being kidnapped. No one – not even her beloved father – had ever dared to take a hand to her, and yet this man seemed to be making a habit of it.

  Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t explicit about how he wanted her to be treated when he handed her off to one of his men, so she was put into the boat somewhat less than gently, which drew his ire to that unlucky sailor when he heard her head connect with one of the seats as he put her down and saw that she had been hit in the back of the head hard enough for her to lose consciousness.

  And although he gave the man a piece of his mind for not being more careful of their precious cargo – a term that drew a chuckle out of the man he was reprimanding – he had to admit that it was actually a lot easier to get her onto the ship when she wasn’t wiggling any more. He tasked the same man with delivering her to his quarters, and more specifically to put her in his bed to recover from the blow, being sure to mention that she was not to be touched or molested in any way by the likes of him – or anyone else. And one look into the smaller man’s eyes let him in on the fact that if the order was disobeyed, he would surely know.

  That got him more ribbing and chuckles from the crew, not that he acknowledged them. Instead he began issuing commands to get them the hell out of the cove as fast as they could before the townspeople descended on them. True, she’d only been able to ring the bell once, and that probably hadn’t aroused much of anyone, especially since they hadn’t come into the proper harbor, but he wasn’t one to take chances with his crew or himself, and so they navigated back to the open sea post haste.

  Before he went below to more tantalizing pursuits, he’d given further orders to his first mate, made sure they were on the course he had prescribed and checked every last detail about how the ship was running down to how well the lowliest swabby was doing – or not doing and drinking or lollygagging himself into a stupor – his job. Only then did he allow himself the luxury of entering his own cabin, to which he owned the only key.

  She was right where he’d imagined that Scully had put her, waves of titian hair fanned out beneath her, but the rest of her still trussed up like a Christmas goose and also still dead to the world, which would be easier for her in the long run. By the time she awoke, they’d be well out to sea, and that should help her disabuse herself of the notion of any kind of a rescue, not that he expected some trollop who was wandering alone on the beach in the middle of the night to have a family with the means to mount any such thing, of course.

  He frowned for a moment, though, looking down at her and noticing for the first time how fine her clothes were. It was faded and worn, but still obviously of good, quality fabric. Probably stolen, he thought. No, there was no way that she was anything more than a common tramp. He rubbed his hand where it still ached from the chunk she’d tried to take out of him, noticing that he bore the stamp of her little teeth on his flesh. A tramp with damned good teeth it seemed, he mused, and an inflated sense of outrage. She’d bitten into him as if the preservation of her virtue demanded it, but he highly doubted there was really anything left for her to fight about so furiously.

  He poured himself a half a tankard of rum from his own private stock and sank into the comfortable chair behind his small desk, grumbling to himself about how taller, bigger men were never meant to go to sea.

  There was a knock on the door – not a tentative one like most of the men would have made, but a much stronger, bolder one that let him know exactly who had issued it.

  “Come.”

  The only slightly smaller man ducked his head on the way into the cabin, just the way he had to, his eyes darting to the big bed that dominated the room even more so than its original occupant. “Ah, so I see it wasn’t just a rumor. There is a woman aboard.” He crossed the floor to pull a chair from the scaled down table that was bolted in place against the wall and carefully put it within reach of Anjel’s rum, which he grabbed and took several gulps from before replacing it exactly where it had been. “A bold move, Anjel. Truly. Although I have to say that bringing a female onto your ship might not be the best move as far as the men are concerned.”

  He reached for the mug again, but Anjel beat him to it, lifting it to his own lips and draining it dry in one gulp. “Get your own damned rum, Ashcroft.”

  His friend as well as first mate had already read the writing on the wall and was already halfway to the bottle before he had a chance to extend the invitation, but then Anjel expected nothing less.

  “If any of the men don’t like it – or if they decide to misbehave while she’s with us – then they’ll be invited to make the long, shark filled swim home.”

  Rory Ashcroft, the spare in the “heir and a spare” scenario of the vaunted house of the Duke of Ashcroft, lifted his eyebrow as he sat back down with a full mug. “Just how long do you intend to keep her?” he asked, planting his feet on the desk next to the charts his friend was studying.

  “As long as I wish.” He fixed the other man with a determined gaze. “Don’t tell me you of all people have managed to dig up a conscience?”

  A derisive snort greeted Anjel’s ears. “Hardly. I was just thinking that where and when you might want to disabuse yourself of this bit of fluff might determine in what direction we head. She’s beautiful enough that, if you could see your way to keeping her even somewhat chaste, she would probably fetch quite a nice price if we sold her to the Turks.”

  Rory watched the expected tic develop in Anjel’s cheek, and if he hadn’t thought it would mean he’d end up with his friend’s not inconsiderably sized fist crashing into his jaw, he would have had the audacity to mouth the words along with him. “I do not peddle flesh.”

  “Ah yes. And you were needling me while imagining my nagging conscience – which I’ve assured you on innumerable occasions that I don’t own – but there you go again, performing against type again as the pirate with a heart of gold . . .”

  He fully expected Anjel to have pushed his big, imposing feet off the edge of his desk by now, but he wasn’t prepared for him to stand up and reach under his booted ankles, using leverage against him to tip him backwards out of his chair. “Keep your feet off my desk and your observations to yourself, Mr. Ashcroft,” came the clipped command.

  Rory was wearing what had been left of his tankard and was fairly baptized in the stuff. “Bloody hell, Anjel, you just wasted perfectly good rum!”

  But Anjel wasn’t looking at his long time friend as he replied, “Just consider yourself a little more
marinated than you usually are.” He was leaning against one of the posts of his bed – his one requirement when this ship had been built was that the captain’s quarters be large enough to accommodate a bed that was big enough that his feet didn’t hang over it. As a result, the shipwrights had built a four post bed into the ship itself, and that suited Anjel perfectly.

  “All I can say is that it’s a good thing you can fight like the very Devil, or you might have a mutiny on your hands with a woman as good looking as that on board. You know how the men can get.”

  He did. And from personal experience, too. But he didn’t bother to answer Rory, who finally got the point and made his way out, closing the door behind him.

  ***

  Cassie awoke slowly to a throbbing headache and a heart stopping sense of alarm that had her trying desperately to ignore the pain enough to sit up and take stock of her surroundings, but it was impossible. Every time she lifted her head, the room began to spin and she couldn’t make much sense of anything she saw, anyway, although she was glad to realize that the dizziness, as well as the pain, did dissipate some after multiple attempts.

  It was her frustrated groan that alerted the other occupant of the room that she was – at last – awake, which was the last thing she wanted to do.

  Before she knew it, her field of vision – such as it was – was filled with the sight of the very large man whom she recognized with a start as the one who had kidnapped her, and he was gazing down at her with a fierce frown. Cassie couldn’t understand why he seemed to be so upset, since it was obviously his fault that she was here and that she’d bumped her head. But she couldn’t remind him of either of those facts since he hadn’t removed the impromptu gag from her mouth, and she was horrified to realize that she was also still very well trussed up and could barely move a muscle.