She crossed her arms, and watched him warily. “Every man lies. I’ll get the truth from ye … one way or ‘nother.”
Darcy gritted his teeth. Blast, she was stubborn.
Slowly, her look boring throughhim, she asked, “Does the name Alexandra Lafitte mean anything to ye?”
Darcy breathed in slowly, restraining every part of his body to hide his alarm. He had read the stories, heard her incredible adventures read at the broadsides and shouted in the streets. A female pirate so fierce, she was claimed to have ripped the hearts of her victims out of their chests while they yet breathed. Not to mention her brothers, Jean and Pierre Lafitte, the plagues of the southern colonies. A pirate dynasty.
And Darcy was on La Femme Lafitte’s ship, where her word was law and his life was dispensable. He felt the blood drain from his face, and he praised the heavens for the darkness concealing his discomposure. “La Femme Lafitte,” he repeated the name given to her in the papers and pamphlets.
Her eyes hardened. “Call me Alex. Unless ye make yerself difficult, then ye’ll call me Cap’n.” She walked around him, continuing her inspection. “I don’t believe ye’re not Nicholas. I know yer voice. Yer face.” She twirled around him, trailing her finger around his shoulders. “Yer body.”
Darcy struggled to keep his limbs loose when every nerve stretched taut.
She tilted her head. “Do ye have family? A brother?”
“No. It is only me.” Whatever the lady pirate’s plan was, he would not involve his family. He would rather die than put Georgiana in danger.
She tsked, her raised eyebrows settling into a smirk. “No secret, twin brother?”
“No.”
“Too bad. I wouldn’t mind havin’ two of ye at me beck and call.” Her breathy voice turned sharp, and she jabbed her nail into his chest. “There’s only one way to settle this. Take off yer shirt.”
CHAPTER 5
Darcy leaned down, forcing the impertinent captain to focus solely on him so that she would not mistake his meaning. Nothing she could say or do would make him change his mind. “No,” he said resolutely.
Quicker than a flash of lightning, Alex reached to her side, her eyes never wavering from his.
Darcy held his breath, determined to face the consequences with his eyes wide open. Before he could so much as flinch, he heard a thunk at his foot. He looked down to see a blade, six inches long, vibrating at the tip of his boot. He bet that if he looked, there would be a neat nick on the sole.
“Next time ye refuse a direct order, I’ll aim higher.” She pulled her dagger out of the deck, rubbing her fingers lovingly over the sharp tip.
Darcy untied his cravat and worked on hisbuttons, hating how easily she had made him yield. Worse than the discomfort of disrobing in the cold, the humiliation of standing half-naked in front of hundreds of men led by this unscrupulous woman irked Darcy.
She watched him with a self-satisfied smile, replacing her dagger in its sheath only when he untucked his shirt. How he hated her. Pulling the soft linen over his head, he let the shirt dangle from his hand. It could work as effectively as a rope should she step closer.
As though Jaffa could read his thoughts, he took the shirt from Darcy, arching an eyebrow in warning.
Alex grinned, satisfied to be the cause of his shame, and drew closer. Her smile faded when she did not see what she had expected. She rubbed her fingers against his shoulder, poking and prodding. “It’s not here.”
Darcy was curious, but he had no desire to engage Alex in conversation.
She jabbed again. “Nick has a jagged scar here.”
“How do you know that?” he asked, despite himself.
She looked up at him, challenge in her eyes. “I was the one who put it there.”
He should have kept silent. He could practically feel her anticipating all the scars she could leave on his person.
She tapped his side where his breeches covered his skin.
Darcy jumpedaway from her.
Arching a brow, she pointed at the puckered skin at his side. “How’d ye get that?”
He was so relieved she did not order him to remove his breeches, he replied, “I jumped off a rock into a lake. There was a fallen tree under the water that had not been there the summer before. One of the branches cut me.”
