She had kept her distance as well. Which suggested to him that it might be useful to alter course in his pursuit of Viola Carlyle’s return to England. He might achieve his goal through another method.
She was not immune to him. In the lamp-lit doorway as she touched him, he had watched her body respond. If she had known it, seen the taut linen over the risen peaks of her breasts, she might not have recovered her bravado so swiftly.
But perhaps she had known it.
She captained a ship like a man, read books university-educated gentlemen read, yet was the most damnably enticing woman Jin had known. In that doorway, with her eyes sparkling in the golden light and her soft lips smiling, he had nearly done what he knew he should not. But perhaps that would be a quicker route to getting her home. A woman under the influence of desire often did whatever the man she desired wished. He had learned this early in life, from his mother’s behavior with his father. Later he had occasionally used that lesson to his advantage.
He did not wish to lie to Viola Carlyle. She was not what she appeared on the surface, not what she wished others to see. For a moment in that doorway, he had seen something quite different in her dark eyes. Vulnerability. And confusion about her desire.
If he were so inclined, he could take advantage of that. But he was no longer that man. He would rather she came without lies.
“You ain’t gonna convince her.”
Jin’s head swung around.
Mattie screwed up his lips. “She ain’t gonna listen if you tell her not to sidle up to that boat.”
“Then perhaps you should tell her. She likes you, I have noticed.”
Mattie guffawed, his cheeks shading crimson. Jin shook his head and returned his gaze to the horizon.
By the time they were within a half league of the vessel he could no longer delay. Setting his shoulders, he went to her post at the quarterdeck.
“This is unwise.” He scanned the sea anew.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
“It is my duty to offer it when I see the necessity.”
“What necessity? She’s obviously abandoned. We have nothing to fear.”
“It could be deception. To lure you.”
She cast him a glance, tilting her brows high. “Oh? A tactic you know? Practiced in your pirating days, no doubt.” Her tone remained perfectly sweet and her thick lashes dipped over wide dark eyes. He had to grin. The combination of insulting harpy and demure temptress suited her.
Her lashes flickered again, then she snapped her gaze away. He followed her averted face, unable not to. Here was innocence and allure wrapped in sailor’s swagger, and he was a fool not to have seen this danger the moment he encountered her on the dock in Boston. In twenty years he had not stood on a ship’s deck and felt his heartbeat quicken. Now it did.
“If you wish to make Trinidad within a sennight,” he said, a roughness to his voice he did not intend, “you will be well served to sail on. It is the safer course.”
She set her fists on her hips. “What is it? I can’t believe the Pharaoh is concerned over the possibility of a little skirmish, so it must be something else.” She held her attention to the horizon. She lowered her voice. “Afraid I’ll die and you’ll lose your prize to carry back to the earl?”
“Yes.”
The wind whipped her hair about her cheeks and she brushed it away.
“Well, that is a possibility you will simply be obliged to live with.”
“I cannot.”
Her hands slipped from her hips and her slender shoulders dipped. Without a word she walked away.
The strange vessel’s crew had clearly tried to give fight. Canvas hung torn from the spars and shredded on the deck, black powder marks and cannon shot wounds gaping in the main deck and rails. Most telling, the foremast was snapped, leaning out over the bow at a sickening tilt. Four crumpled bodies littered the deck, too few men to mark it as anything but a merchant vessel, sailors sufficient only to keep her on course. If there were no others below, the rest of the crew might have been pressed into service. Better living the life of a pirate until the next port than dying on the spot. Jin had seen plenty of sailors make that choice.
“Rum business,” Mattie grunted as he came alongside him at the rail. “What’s she gonna do?” He gestured with a jerk of his meaty jowl toward Viola standing amidships below, calling out orders to her crewmen to maneuver their approach.
“Go over there and invite them to tea, no doubt.” Jin took a deep breath and descended to the main deck. He went to her side. “Don’t do it.”
“Be silent, Seton, or I will relieve you of duty.”
“You hired me for this purpose.”
“I hired you under false pretenses. Gui, fetch my sword! Sam, Frenchie, lower the boat. Then both of you and Stew, Gabe, and Ayo come with me.”
Sailors were gathering at the rail, peering onto the other ship’s deck.
“Then allow me,” Jin said quietly.
“I said be silent.”
“A captain should remain with her ship.”
“And leave all the fun to others?”
“Fun? There are dead men on that deck.”
She glanced down at the boy. He proffered her a thick-bladed cutlass and she strapped it to her belt. “You stay here, Gui.”
The cabin boy scowled and glowered nearly as convincingly as Mattie. She ruffled his hair, then loosened the strap of the pistol on her sash. “Men, secure the sheets and lower the boat.”
Jin kept his voice low amid the bustle. “What sort of sailor puts her life at risk simply to amuse herself?”
“You’re starting to sound like my old nurse.”
“Perhaps because you are behaving like a rash child who knows not what is best for her.”
She turned to him fully then, pure determination in her eyes.
“I got along well enough on the sea for fifteen years without you, Jinan Seton. I’ve no doubt I will get along for at least another fifteen in the same manner.” She pushed through her crewmen toward the gangway.
He followed, cursing under his breath. She made it to the ladder first and swung down it to the boat below, perfectly agile. The boat rocked on the striated swells, sailors set oars to water, and they headed toward the immobile ship. They neared and Sam tossed up a hooked rope. Jin grabbed it first, secured it and went up, then threw the ladder down.
She climbed aboard and stopped middeck, surveying the scene.
“Damned pirates,” she muttered.
Jin moved to a prone figure and knelt. Dried blood matted the man’s hair and stained his shirtfront burned with pistol fire, and blood caked the blade of the sword trapped in his waxy grip. He straightened. “Three days at most. No carrion birds as yet.”
“Too far from land.” She crossed herself, her lips moving in a silent prayer, then said aloud, “No one is looking for them.”
“Don’t be a fool.” Prickling heat stroked at his shoulders. “Someone is always looking.”
“Why didn’t they scuttle her or take her for parts?”
“Because they are hiding below until the ideal moment when they will spring forth and kill us all and seize your ship? Just a guess.”
“Coward.”
He simply stared at her.
She grinned. Unremarkably, and despite circumstances, it went straight to his groin. She was, apparently, quite fearless. And quite beautiful when she smiled with impish challenge.
“Boys,” her rich alto cajoled her men, “who wants to go below with me and see what these poor souls were cooking for dinner before the good Lord took them to fairer fields?”
Jin moved toward the companionway, the others remaining motionless-wisely. She came behind him.
“Not too skittish to take a peek now, hm, Seton?” She was right at his back, their footsteps echoing into the
