Cullen said nothing, but pulled her into his arms and held her so tightly, she stopped breathing for a moment. And then he was gone.
After the temporary door slammed shut and the canvas walls shuddered and flapped in his wake, she grabbed the nearest solid item to hand - her journal - and hurled it to the deck floor.
She would get to the truth of what they had to fear from Ariadne’s hatred and spite if she had to extract the details from someone who knew. She couldn’t be sure, but she could not imagine Captain Still accepting a physician to replace her father without knowing everything about him. If the captain refused to tell her what lay behind the allegations hanging over Cullen’s head, she would leave the ship once they returned to Portsmouth and throw herself on the mercy of her husband’s kinsmen in the far north Highlands.
The marine guarding Captain Still’s door on the morning watch was Sergeant Claridge. He rapped a knuckle against the door and then opened it just as Willa sailed through. He kept his face blank of expression, but she noted a nervous flicker in his eyes when she stormed past him.
Captain Still sat at his desk and was in the act of pouring a cup of steaming tea from a silver pot. When she stood before him, blinking back tears, he pointed toward the chair opposite him. “Sit, Willa. Tell me what’s troubling you, child.”
His servant passed the cup to Willa, along with a small plate of biscuits. The captain had remembered how she liked her tea, and the cup contained a healthy dollop of cream.
He waved Jenkins away and leaned back in his chair, waiting.
“Why did you not tell me what you knew about Dr. MacCloud’s past when I came to you with the locket?”
“You didn’t ask.”
She took a long sip of the bracing, hot tea. “I’m asking now.”
“All of the officers and men on our ships at the Bombardment of Algiers acquitted themselves valiantly. Many were commended and promoted. Our surgeons performed especially above and beyond the Admiralty’s expectations. The fleet overall lost nearly two hundred dead and seven hundred twenty-six wounded.”
“But what possible reason would Dr. MacCloud have for abandoning his station aboard ship in the days before the battle?” Willa set down her cup and leaned forward, clenching her hands together.
“There was a special shore party dispatched to evacuate the dependents of the consul and other British families in Algiers. Since they had to be rescued under the cover of night without the Dey’s knowledge, they needed a way to ensure the babies and small children could be smuggled out safely.”
Willa scooted close to the front of her chair, her hands gripping the edge of the seat.
“Dr. MacCloud was one of the surgeons who volunteered to accompany the marines to make sure the children didn’t cry, without endangering their breathing.” Captain Stills gave a huge sigh and set his spectacles aside, rubbing hard at his eyes.
One of the last rescuers headed for the shore boat was your husband. He was carrying a baby. From what we were able to piece together from witnesses, apparently Madame de Santis was on a mission to smuggle sensitive French documents out of the embassy before the bombardment began. When she accosted Dr. MacCloud and demanded he provide her passage aboard the shore boat, he refused, and she shot him.”
Willa could not contain her rage. “What happened then? What about the poor child? Did no one detain Ariadne for such a foul deed?”
Captain Still raised a hand in a sign of peace. “Dr. MacCloud’s infamously hard head saved him, and the blast only grazed his forehead. She showed up at the boat with the baby, claimed Algerian troops had killed the surgeon, and they believed her.”
“Then the letter she used to get me to do her bidding was only part of the truth, the part she thought she could use to destroy Cullen?”
He paused before answering. “I’m afraid so. In fact, Dr. MacCloud rejoined the Leander’s crew before the battle began, they patched up his wound, and he assisted the surgeon, Mr. Quarries, throughout the entire bloody action.”
Willa scarcely remembered stumbling out of the captain’s cabin and scrambling down multiple hatchway steps at a time to return to Cullen’s side. When he saw the look on her face, he opened his arms and she fell into them.
Later that night, she stripped off her sensible cotton nightgown and climbed over top of him, nuzzling her way up his body, stopping to touch and lick at all of the places of which she’d become inordinately fond.
When he pulled her up hard against him and claimed her mouth for a long kiss, she straddled his cock. He rubbed the tip carefully against her entrance and then moved to pleasure her with his fingers, the way their lovemaking usually progressed. She pushed his hand away instead. “No,” she breathed into his mouth. “I want you inside me.”
“But what about—?”
She silenced him with her fingers against his lips. “Journal entries be damned.” When she slid down, sheathing his cock in her wetness, there was the tiniest of bit of pain until he grasped her hips with his hands and began to move within her. He thrust up several times before grabbing her wrists and demanding, “Are you sure?”
Her only answer was to rise up on her knees before slowly grinding back down over his cock.
He groaned. “Ye’re killin’ me, lass.”
She growled low near his ear. “Do you want me to stop?”
“Och, no. Then I’d be a dead man for sure.”
Hours later, she rubbed her fingers across his bare chest and purred a little hum of satisfaction. “Why didn’t you want to tell me the whole truth of what happened in Algiers?”
He stopped breathing for a moment before taking in a deep inhale and answering. “What Ariadne did to me at Algiers was nothing compared to
