with his hands she made none of her usual protest, but let him, quivering again only very slightly when his fingers touched her. There, where his lips had brushed only moments ago.
“My poor jeune fille. Is the thought of seduction so frightening to you that you have to fight me tooth and nail?”
She realized then that she had actually clawed at his shoulders. When he leaned over her, penetrating her quickly and deeply, she tasted his blood against her lips and wondered in the back of her mind what had made him so patient with her tonight. Any other man she might have called kind, but she had learned that Dominic Challenger wasn’t. He was a man who took what he wanted, and women were a convenience, no more—she remembered that he had snarled that at her one night.
She would never understand him, why even try. It was the champagne that made this time different from all those others and made her head whirl and her breasts ache against his chest where the funny foreign medal he wore pressed into her flesh, warm from his body, like a brand.
He held her against him all night, his flesh still part of hers. And he took her again in the morning when she was still half-asleep, quickly and impatiently this time, without a kiss or a caress. But at least he pulled the covers back over her when he left; and turning over with a sigh, Marisa slept again.
When she woke it was well past noon. Donald, his eyes carefully averted, brought her a tray and informed her that they were approaching the coast of France. They should be safely berthed in the harbor of Nantes by nightfall.
When he had gone, Marisa jumped quickly out of bed, grimacing slightly at the bad taste the champagne had left in her mouth. She could see nothing out of the porthole, for the captain’s cabin was at deck level and not high enough for her to catch a glimpse of anything but the same blue, heaving ocean. Turning back with a sigh of disappointment, she discovered her “clothes”—the same patched-up garments she had worn during her short masquerade as a cabin boy. They were folded and lying neatly on a small chest at the foot of the bed.
A tacit reminder that the captain now desired her dressed for a change? Biting her lower lip, Marisa stared at the dirty-white shirt and breeches with distaste. During the time she had spent at sea, she had managed, somehow, to detach herself from reality. A ship was a world within itself, and since he had elected to keep her for his use, she had not come in contact with a single other human except Donald. She found herself wondering now if the rest of the crew even knew of her existence. The ambiguity of the situation she was placed in suddenly struck her with the force of a blow, and she flinched, snatching up the garments she had despised a moment ago.
France! But they were still quite some distance from Paris. What did he intend to do with her once they had disembarked? Surely he would allow her off the ship; he had said that women were considered bad luck. And if he did, then what?
She was given no chance to ask any questions. Some time much later in the afternoon Dominic came striding into the cabin, giving her only a cursory glance, and collected a sheaf of papers off his desk before leaving again. She heard voices, running feet on the deck, the shrill whistle of the boatswain’s pipe, and the creaking of timbers. Mr. Benson’s voice shouted orders that were unintelligible, and she guessed they were hauling down sail, for the normally swift passage of the ship seemed to have slowed so that now she could actually hear the lapping of water against her sides instead of the hiss as the sharp prow cut through the waves. It was intolerable that she should have to stay cooped up here, and especially now; but she dared not show herself on deck, either.
The rough cotton garments, washed in sea water with strong soap, chafed her skin, especially at the neck and waist. For a time Marisa paced angrily about the cabin, and then, flinging herself into a chair, she picked up the shabby, leather-bound volume of Shakespeare’s plays that had so fascinated her before. As she turned the pages, trying to find the place where she had stopped, Marisa wondered how it was that the bad-tempered Captain Challenger should come to have such a book in his possession. She could not imagine him taking the time to sit down and read, and yet it appeared well-worn, like a book of poetry by someone called Donne that she had also discovered on his desk.
Suddenly she found herself staring down at the frontispiece—why hadn’t she noticed it before? There was a scrawled Latin inscription, Inopem me copia fecit, ‘Plenty makes me poor’—not his writing, surely? The hand was feminine, the ink faded. And below it, simply a name. ‘Peggy.’ Who was Peggy? What had she been to him?
It was the first question she asked him when he finally returned to the cabin, once the ship was safely at anchor.
He looked tired and irritable and didn’t bother to speak one word to her; he merely sat on the end of the bed to take off his boots.
“Who is Peggy? Your wife?” Until the words slipped out she had not considered the possibility that he might, indeed, have a wife tucked away somewhere. She didn’t know why the thought should disturb her—except that it made her own position so much the worse. His mistress!
Still occupied in tugging off his wet boots he looked up uncomprehendingly at first; then he frowned.
“What?”
“I asked you if your wife’s name is Peggy. Or was she merely one of your mistresses?”
His face whitened, and then a look of such fury came over it that Marisa shrank back against the bulkhead.
“You damned, prying little bitch!” He said it softly, between his teeth. “What in hell do you mean by that? Where did you—”
The book she had been holding dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers, catching his eye.
There was a silence that stretched unendingly, while Marisa stayed flattened against the wall, not daring to look at him. Oh, God. Why had she spoken? He’d looked furious enough to kill her with his bare hands!
And then he said in a surprisingly quiet, controlled voice, “Peggy was my mother. And I have no wife—nor do I intend ever to saddle myself with one. Do you understand?”
At last she managed to raise her eyes to his face, and he gave a harsh, ugly laugh. “Your eyes are as big as saucers. Did I really succeed in frightening you at last?” Before she could find her voice to respond, he stood up and crossed the room with two long strides and caught her shoulders. “Don’t ever ask me questions about myself, menina. You might not like the answers you receive!”
“I—I didn’t mean—” She didn’t mean to stutter either, but she could not help it.
He pulled her against his chest and held her there as if to comfort her for having scared her half out of her wits. “Never mind. It’s not your fault, and I’m a moody devil at the best of times. It’s a good thing for you we’ll soon be going our separate ways.”
Marisa didn’t dare question him again as he swept her up into his arms and carried her over to the bed. Not then, while he undressed her with surprising gentleness and then lay beside her, his hands moving over her trembling, acquiescent body as if he wished to memorize it.
“You haven’t learned passion yet, have you?” he said softly once. “And I’m too damned impatient and selfish to be your instructor, although sometimes, when you lie here like a shivering trapped animal I find myself wondering—”
He was talking more to himself than to her, and she wondered at this different mood and its cause. Perhaps he’d be relieved to be rid of her; she knew she would be relieved to have her body belong to herself again.
Now, recognizing the signs of his desire as he pressed his lips against the vein that throbbed in her neck, Marisa expected him to take her without any further preliminaries. For the last time, perhaps. Tomorrow—hadn’t he talked of their going separate ways? But instead, he cursed softly under his breath and rolled away from her.
With disbelieving eyes she watched him get up and begin to dress.
“Where are you going?” And then she bit her lip. Hadn’t he just warned her not to question him?
He answered her in the old, hard voice she was used