For two hours Elizabeth had sat there before Nagel had come back and taken her to Yancy’s bedchamber. She did not know what had become of the others, if Thomas was alive or if Yancy had killed him already. She did not know what would happen to her, but she could guess.
Her eyes moved again to the swords mounted on the wall. A pair of long, thin, cup-hilt rapiers, crossed and mounted as decoration, they were very like the weapons with which Bickerstaff had taught her sword work. If she could just get her wrists free and get one of those weapons in her hands, she could skewer the filthy insect as he came in the door.
She struggled anew against her bonds, clenched her teeth against the agony of her raw flesh, but it was no use. Nagel was a sailor. He knew how to tie things so they stayed tied.
Then footsteps in the hall, light footfalls, and she knew it was not Nagel. She lay still, listened to them growing closer, and she was sure that the soft, quick steps were those of Elephiant Yancy. There would be no getting out of this through brute force alone, no chance to run him through as he entered the room. She had no choice now but to play the willing lover, if only until her hands were free.
The thought of it was as revolting as that of being forcibly raped.
The footsteps stopped. The door to Yancy’s bedchamber, like all the doors to all the bedchambers in the big house, had a heavy lock that could be worked from inside the room or out. Each room could function as either sanctuary or prison.
Elizabeth heard the key turn in the lock on the other side of the door. The door swung in. Half lost in the shadows was Elephiant Yancy, wearing his rich silk clothing, his long cape with its red lining trailing behind him. He stood there for a moment and looked at her, and she tried to look back in an alluring, come-to-me manner, but it was hard, being tied as she was. She reckoned that the sight of her lashed to the bed was all the allure the little prick would need.
“Elephiant, where have you been?” she asked, as if she cared.
Yancy stepped into the room, and then Elizabeth could see his thin weasel face, the carefully groomed mustache and goatee, which he stroked as he watched her, as was his habit. He believed that the gesture made him look thoughtful and intelligent, she could tell.
He turned and closed the door and locked it, set the key on the table by the door, then crossed the room, stepping with authority and confidence. “It has been a busy day, my dear, a most busy day. But I need not tell you that.” He whirled his cape off, tossed it on a nearby chair.
“I have no doubt,” Elizabeth said soothingly. “That beast Nagel has tied me up. Let me loose and I’ll rub your shoulders. You need a soft touch.”
Yancy took a step toward her. “That beast Nagel tied you up on my orders. You nearly burned my house down, when last you was here. Do you recall?”
“Me? You think that was my fault? I have no notion how the fire started, though I do recall it nearly killed me. But come, let me make it up to you.”
He smiled down at her, then tossed his head back and laughed. “I am not so much a fool, you know, as to think you want me in that way!
You’ll have me, want me or no, but I’ll not be tricked into thinking you hold some great love for me. Someday you will. But not now.”
“How do you know? You are a handsome man, and a powerful one. Perhaps I do have some feelings for you.”
“Perhaps. But what will you do if I untie you, eh? Fight me? Punch me? Kick me? What will you do?” He stepped over to the bed, ran a finger down her cheek, down her neck, over her breasts. Elizabeth closed her eyes, made a purring sound as between closed lips she clenched her teeth.
“What will you do, my lovely?”
She opened her eyes. “Why don’t you let me free and see?” she said, just a whisper.
Yancy ran his fingertip over her face again. “I will.” He reached around his waist and pulled out his long, needle-thin stiletto, held it up, let the candlelight dance off the blade. “I am not such a fool,” he said again. “But I think I will like it if you fight. These native girls are so very passive, they will lay down with never a struggle. I think I will like a bit of a challenge.”
Elizabeth lay very still as he moved the knife past her face, less than an inch from her skin. She felt the tip of the blade touch her arm, as light as a feather, and Yancy ran the point gently up the length of her arm until she felt the steel against her wrists, and with a quick motion he cut the bonds away.
“Oh,” Elizabeth moaned involuntarily. A great wave of relief flowed over her as she lowered her arms, gently rubbed the raw flesh on her wrists.
Yancy had made a grave mistake. Her arms and her wrists had ached so much, she had been so very helpless, that her will and her strength had begun ebbing fast away, and she had not even realized it. But now the fight was back in her.
She snuggled deeper into the bed, looked into Yancy’s eyes, gently bit her lower lip. There was not much about enticement that Elizabeth did not understand.
Yancy tossed the stiletto aside. He was kneeling beside her on the bed, and she ran her hand up his thigh. She turned her head and let a wisp of her long blond hair fall across her cheek.
She did not dare look at the rapiers. But even as she caressed Yancy’s leg and his waist and ran her hand up his chest, she was calculating time and distance, gauging whether she was better off going for the weapon or going directly for the door.
Yancy came down on top of her, his hands planted on either side of her, and he began to kiss her neck roughly. She shifted under him, gave a low moan, swallowed hard to try to quell her revulsion. She could make it to the door, she concluded, but she would not have time to grab the key, work the lock and get out, then lock it again from the outside. Not unless Yancy was genuinely disabled. And for that she needed the rapier.
Timing, timing, timing, it was everything, and she knew she had to endure a minute more of his insult. She ran her fingers through his hair, stretched out her neck, forced her mind to concentrate on visions of Marlowe House, her beloved garden, long rides through the fields.
Yancy ran his mouth over her neck and down her chest, and his hands grabbed at her breasts. She could hear his breathing growing raspier. She moved her hand over his back and down his leg, shifted under him. He reached up and tugged at her bodice, kissing her roughly above her breasts, getting swept up in his desire, his former caution forgotten.
Elizabeth pressed her lips together hard, slid her hand along the inside of Yancy’s thigh and up. She could feel his erection under the loose fabric of his breeches. She ran her hand along it, and he pressed against her and made a guttural sound and bit her neck. She moved her hand lower, cupped his balls.
Yancy groaned, pressed closer, and then he sensed the danger. He began to push himself off her, and she squeezed him hard, crushing him with a grip grown powerful after half a year at sea.
“Bitch!” Yancy shrieked, tried to stand up on his knees, but the pain doubled him over. Elizabeth let go of his privates, rolled out of the way just as Yancy would have collapsed on top of her.
She rolled off the far side of the bed, hit the floor, and leaped to her feet. “Ahhhh!” Yancy screamed, part pain, part fury. Elizabeth raced around the bed, eyes on the door, thinking, Perhaps I can make it…
But then Yancy was off the bed, hunched over, staggering for the door, the stiletto in his hand. He was half lost in the deep shadows that filled the room, the little pools of yellow light from the candles. “Go on, go for the door, you rutting bitch! Think you can make it?” he hissed.
Elizabeth stopped, took a step back, reached up, took hold of a rapier on the wall, and pulled it free. The weapon danced in her hand, felt as natural there as her hairbrush or glass, but Yancy did not notice the ease with which she wielded it. He stood between her and the door, straightening slowly, grimacing. “Come on… you want to leave, you have to go through me first…”
She advanced on him, point of her blade at the height of his eyes. He stood straighter, and his grimace resolved into a grin as the pain subsided. “I said I wanted a fight, and, oh, you do not disappoint, do you, my dear?”
Elizabeth paused. She felt taut, every muscle pulled tight like a ship’s rigging. Everything in the dim light seemed sharper, every sound distinct and clear. Yancy was grinning at her, holding the stiletto in front of him. Knife against sword, it did not seem to be such a problem.
She lunged at him, arm extended, back leg straight, forward leg bent, tip thrust at his chest, and to her amazement he caught her blade with the hilt of his stiletto and turned it aside. He tried to twist her blade, to
