“Why?”
“I wanted to fish in the pond with the stable boy. That was what nourished my child’s heart. Not blindly following orders.” I lowered my eyes to the unfinished gown. “Conforming to the standards of others goes against everything that I am.”
“I shall presume your mother never received an offer for your hand.”
“Unfortunately, she did. Unfortunate for him. I broke the betrothal when I opened his bowels with my knife.”
He regarded me, unblinking. Following an eternal moment, a small crease formed between his eyes. “You’re not jesting, are you?”
“No.” I shrugged. “When we arrive in England, you can add the murder of the Marquess of Grisdale to my list of crimes.”
“This was the lord with the unwelcome prick?”
“The same.”
He drifted closer, leaning over me. His hand lifted slowly, stuttering my breath. Fingertips rested against my neck, so soft, so barely there I strained to feel the ghostly touch.
“Where did you get this?” His hand curled around the stone at my throat.
“I stole it.”
“And this?” He pinched the linen of Priest’s shirt, where it lay against my clavicle. “Who did this belong to?”
“The man I stole it from. I didn’t catch his name.”
I’d come aboard this ship wearing only two things. Something that belonged to my father and something that belonged to my husband. Sometimes I was so accidentally sentimental it was a wonder I’d survived this long.
His gaze swept over the desk, finding the drawings I’d destroyed to make the boning of the stays.
“Should I possess a harp,” he said, “I now know to lock it up.”
“And the bristle brush you use on your teeth.” I gave him a toothy smile, flashing my sparkling white enamel. “Unless you don’t mind me borrowing it again.”
“You have no shame.”
“None at all.”
He had no anger. No emotion. But he must have felt something. He was a thinking, calculating man of intellect. It concerned me that I couldn’t read him.
“Now you should allow me to ask you some questions.” I raised my chin.
“Come with me.” He turned on his heel and strode into the dining cabin.
Curious, I padded after him.
At the table, he pulled out a chair for me. I moved to sit, but he blocked my path, his eyes fixed on the loose ties of my stays.
I didn’t have to follow his gaze to feel my chest spilling from the low-cut neckline. The exposure had been by design.
As I opened my mouth to ask for his assistance, his fingers beat me to it, latching onto the laces between my breasts. Then he yanked. Hard. The stays constricted, cutting my air. He pulled harder until I thought my ribs would crack.
I sucked in my torso and adjusted to the girding pressure, watching his expression, searching for a flush, a heated look, a bobbing throat.
Nothing.
He secured a knot between my breasts, making the stays impossibly close and tight. Strait-laced. Then he patted the surface of the table, willfully mute.
I stared at the gesture, confused.
“Bend over. Face down.” He tapped the surface again. “Just here.”
“My lord?” My heart rate quickened. “Surely, you don’t mean to—”
“You ransacked my personal effects, ruined my clothing, and destroyed my drawings.” He folded his hands behind him, shoulders squared. “Despite your childish games, I should hope you have arrived at an accurate conclusion.”
“Which is?”
“Your romantic plans to instigate my ire will not come to fruition.”
“Yes, you’ve fallen short of expectations. But honestly, Ashley, you must learn to share your feelings for this relationship to work.”
“What…” He breathed in, out. “What relationship?”
“Our captor-captive relationship.” I narrowed my eyes.
“Indeed. I was just getting to that.” He pointed his chin at the table. “Bend over, if you please. We can do this with your arms free or bound behind you.”
“This?” My pulse rammed like a sledge in my ears. “What—?”
In a blur, his hand stabbed into my hair, fingers clenching in the curls at my scalp and yanking my head back.
“Listen carefully, Goldilocks.” He forced my eyes to meet his tyrannical glare, his voice chillingly absent of storm or wind. “I will not give you the reaction you seek. But I will always make good on your punishment.”
I didn’t need the higher learning of a titled lord to comprehend his meaning. Not with my cunt still swollen from last night’s smiting.
Reaching back, my shaking fingers closed around the hand in my hair, and I felt the trembling in him, too.
He was shaking. I hadn’t invented that reaction nor the hunger pulsing in his gaze. He wanted this. Not just to maintain order. The thought of reddening my backside aroused him.
A shiver ran along my spine and curled into my belly.
“No restraints.” I wet my lips, my eyes watering from the smarting pain in my skull. “I’ll obey.”
His hand vanished. My knees turned to liquid, and I stumbled against the table.
The humiliation from a spanking would hurt more than the physical blows. But with his hand in contact with my arse, there would be a measure of intimacy in that. A step in the right direction.
“How many prisoners have you spanked, Commodore?” I folded at the waist and braced my elbows on the table, holding his gaze over my shoulder.
“None.” He stepped behind me and kicked my feet apart, staggering the rhythm of my breaths. “Arms over your head.”
My skin heated, and a shiver of uncertainty invaded my nerves. But I did as ordered, sliding my hands across the table and bringing my chest and cheek to the wooden surface. The position prevented me from looking at him, but I felt him everywhere. His muscled heat, commanding presence, penetrating gaze on my bottom…
He lifted the weight of my hair to the side. Then a firm finger touched the base of my skull. From there, it trailed down my spine, over the stays, and pressed low, forcing me into a deeper arch.
His other hand rested on the back of my thigh, the heat of it seeping through the thin linen and making me quake. I didn’t want him to know how easily I responded to his touch, but my body didn’t understand the wisdom in discretion.
My flesh rose in prickling bumps like the skin of a plucked goose. Noisy gasps heaved from my chest. Tremors danced up and down my legs, shivering the muscle beneath his hand.
Beyond the open door of the balcony, the distant thunder of waves rumbled on the horizon. Wood creaked with the rolling of the warship. And behind me, masculine breaths grew deeper, louder.
“Do you like what you see?” I closed my eyes and ordered my limbs to relax.
“I never imagined,” he murmured, “that a view could pertain to the sense of touch. Yet when I look at you, I don’t just see beauty. I feel it.”
The compliment shocked my eyes open as each word sank beneath my breastbone and saturated the spot where I was the softest and easiest to injure.
“Seeing you like this…” He shifted, leaning along my side and taking in my form. “It’s a feeling of such…relief. Like stepping into the rain after years of drought.” His gaze strolled along the length of my body, his voice deepening. “The untamed serenity in it, soft as velvet, gentle waves of perfect beauty, glistening with life. One look is a shower that washes the senses anew.”