AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Before he got to the door, he lifted the lantern as if to take it with him.
Panic flooded her.
Death tainted the air and she sensed the rats lurking in the dark corners. She couldn’t protect herself with a ring of fire as she might on open land, for it would endanger the ship. “Please, Roderick,” she cried out, “do not leave me here alone in the dark, I beg of you.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Roderick knew he shouldn’t turn back. Lord knew he tried not to. His men were correct in their assertions. She was a witch and a Jezebel, and she had played him far too well. That didn’t stop him from wanting to save her, to free her and let her loose on dry land, with the instruction to run for her life and not look back.
“Roderick, please...”
Her voice reached out to him like ethereal fingers swooping across the space to touch him, just as it had that first night in Billingsgate.
“Please, at least...at least leave the lantern.”
He put his fist against the door frame, urging himself to climb the ladder away from this place, away from her. Frustration held him to the spot. He shouldn’t trust her. She’d all but threatened him moments before, showing him what she could do to his ship with just a toss of her head and a few magical words. “What, so that you can control the flame and threaten to burn us all?”
“No! I would never do such a thing. It’s because I’m afraid. There are rats. I hear them. And this place...it reeks of death.”
Roderick’s gut turned over. It was the fact she knew—that she could sense someone had died down here... It had been one of his men, afflicted with a fatal fever and sadly untreatable. The sailor had insisted on taking himself down here to die alone, before his burial at sea. None of them had been happy about it, but it was the man’s last request, and represented his dignity.
More than that, Roderick didn’t want to leave her. Everything in him balked at the idea of her alone and afraid. Yet the fact that she could sense death only proved what she was—a witch.
“You are afraid of nothing. Why would you be, with your powers?” He shot the words back over his shoulder, and as he did the image of her hanging there—so thoroughly vulnerable and compromised—made his lust flare. He quashed it down. “I cannot even look at you for fear of your magic. The way your eyes glow...I should never have brought you onto the ship.”
“I have never influenced you by magic.”
Roderick squeezed his eyes tightly shut. How he wished it were true. How he wished he could believe her. All he wanted to do was take her in his arms.
Her voice softened. “Roderick, listen to me. I promise I will not create magic, but there are things I need to say to you.”
How beguiling she was, and he couldn’t even see her. Even her voice touched him, turned him. “I will give you a few moments more, if you promise you will not look at me with those eyes.”
There was silence at his back.
Eventually, she responded. “In that case you must cover them, for my gaze is always drawn to you. Please, for what we have shared, spare me a moment to hear me state my case.”
That troubled him, as he knew it was meant to. She hadn’t been given a chance to speak. Once his men had become riled, he’d had to act and fast.
He strode back, bringing the lantern nearer to her. The flame flickered wildly, sending light and shadow skittering across the dark hold in the bowels of the ship.
Her beauty and her vulnerability seemed exaggerated by the circumstances, and he quickly lowered the lantern to the floor. “Turn your face away.”
“My eyes are closed.” Nevertheless, she did as instructed and turned her face to one side.
Hurriedly, he looked about for something to blindfold her with, lest she turn on him. Pulling his shirt free of his breeches, he went to tear it.
“You may use my petticoats,” she whispered.
Roderick pressed his lips together, ducked down and lifted her skirts.
As soon as he did he regretted it. The light from the lantern he’d set on the floor lit up her slender ankles as he lifted her skirts, and he was flooded with memories of how it felt to have those legs wrapped around him while he thrust deep between her thighs. The way she’d mounted and clung to him the night before, so bravely accepting him and claiming he was her master, all of it conspired to make him crave more of her. Doubts crowded into his head. He’d never been so thoroughly beguiled by a woman before. Was it as Brady had suggested? Was he under her spell?
“I hope I do not live to regret this,” he muttered, as he tore a length of linen from her petticoat. Dropping her skirt back into place regretfully, he rose to his feet and quickly blindfolded her with the wrap he’d torn from her underclothing.
Maisie hung her head down between her bound arms to aid him, keeping her eyes shut all the while. Roderick was struck by the sight of her like that. Her submission, after all the fire he’d witnessed in her, made his lust surge.
How could that be? Because I yearn for her constantly. To see her this way only shows me how much I want her submission for my own benefit.
