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“I beg yer pardon, my lord, but it was a reference to the Almighty above, though I have gained no assistance from its use.” He suddenly flung back his head. “I will take her place, my lord. Ye will have her watch and the lesson will never be forgotten.”
“She called me a braying ass not long ago. Now I must bequeath that charming title to you. Under no circumstances would I do anything so reprehensible.”
“Ye abducted a lady, my lord, and against her will.”
“If you do not keep your tongue between your teeth, I shall have you flogged for insolence. If you have not the wit to see that the circumstances are utterly disparate, I wash my hands of you.”
“Methinks it is the fiery Ligurian gentleman speaking and not the English lord.”
The earl shot him a look so filled with frustrated anger that Scargill quickly mumbled an apology and fell silent.
The earl said finally, a black brow arched, “If you, Scargill, had disobeyed a direct order, even if it imperiled only yourself and not the yacht, you may rest assured that I would have had you flogged without hesitation.”
“Aye, my lord, but I am a man.”
“Ah.”
“What will ye do?”
“Go to the devil,” he said, and turned away.
Cassie heard the sound of his boots outside the cabin door, and quickly squared her shoulders. She pinched color into her cheeks and rose to stand by the table, one hand laid carefully on a chair arm to support her trembling legs.
He filled the cabin with his presence, as he always did, and her hand tightened about the chair. He looked like a pirate, she thought, with his black tousled hair above his thick-arched black brows, and his full-sleeved white shirt, open at the neck and topped with a loose black vest.
He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, his thumbs hooked in the wide leather belt around his waist. His expression was unreadable, but to her eyes, his mouth was set in a pitiless line.
“Is it to be now, my lord?”
The calmness of her voice was belied by the flash of fear in her eyes.
He said slowly, still hopeful of inspiration, “I am not certain if a flogging is what is most needful. Perhaps a flogging, like a hanging, would be wasteful.”
Her fear made her blind. “Wasteful. It is your needless cruelty that is wasteful. Damn you, why must you torture me? Do it and be done.”
He realized that there was no hope for it. Hellfire, he muttered under his breath. Aloud, he said, “Very well.”
His voice sounded remote, and it required all her courage not to back away as he slowly unfastened the wide belt from about his waist. He dropped his hands and walked quickly to the dresser. From the bottom drawer, he drew out a soft, narrow leather belt.
“Strip to the waist, Cassandra.”
His jaw tightened as he watched her trembling fingers prod at the tiny buttons on her bodice. She was as white as her chemise when she slowly slipped the lace straps from her shoulders and let the soft satin slip to her waist. Absurdly, she covered her breasts with her hands.
“Pin up your hair, it is covering your back.”
As she jabbed pins haphazardly into the masses of hair, she remembered, foolishly, their verbal battle earlier in the day about what her punishment would be if she wore breeches without his permission. It had been so ridiculous; they had done naught but spar with words. She tried to think objectively about pain, but she could recall nothing but the broken arm she had sustained at ten years old after being thrown from her mare. She must have felt pain, she thought, but there was nothing real for her to grasp. She remembered the possets forced down her throat by Becky Petersham, and the cast that made her skin itch, but no pain. She drew a deep, resolute breath and turned to face the earl, her hands still covering her breasts. She blanched at the sight of the belt, its buckle and clasp wrapped tightly about his hand.
“You may support yourself against the bookshelf.”
She walked numbly to the inset mahogany bookshelves that lined the cabin wall beside his desk, her eyes resting foolishly for an instant on the novel she had been reading. She stretched her arms above her head and firmly clasped her fingers about the edge of a shelf. She rested her forehead against the edge of a lower shelf and clenched her teeth tightly together. Help me not to make a fool of myself, she pleaded, more to herself than to any deity. She tensed her muscles and waited. She knew he was standing behind her, his hand in all likelihood poised in midair, ready to lash the belt across her back.
You are a fool, my girl, she said to herself, her muscles straining in taut fear. You fight him with all your strength, yet the result is unbelievable pleasure. Yet now you stand of your own free will for him to flog you.
The earl lifted the belt only to lower it again. He looked at her slender white back. An errant strand of golden hair had escaped its pin and fell in a long lazy curl down to her waist. His fingers lifted the hair from her back. She quivered. His hand shook and again, he lowered the belt.
“Damn you,” she said suddenly, her voice shrill in her fear. “Are you so cruel that you delight in making me wait, knowing what must come?”
The earl raised the belt and brought it down as lightly as he dared across her shoulders.
