“I am comfortable like this. I can run and ride and fight better.”
“We are not fighting today or any other day. You cannot leave the room wearing that!”
“I won’t be leaving the room. Danny the boy will be.” She flourished a cap and then edged him out of the way so she could look into the glass. When she began pinning her flame-bright hair, he still stood, shaking his head and wondering what deity had it in for him so badly that Daniella had been sent into his orbit.
“Hobson also gave me a scarf and there is an oversize coat in the carriage. I’ll be your squire. Or footman? I could even ride on top of the carriage again.”
The excitement in her voice fuelled the anger in his veins. “You cannot do this, Daniella. You’ll fool no one.” His eyes travelled along the curve of her spine, the not-quite-white shirt almost hugging the contours of her arse where it wasn’t long enough to completely cover it. She wore a waistcoat but her breasts were mountainous beneath the coarse brown fibre. His eyes kept drifting down towards those tight thighs encased in black, and those shaped, toned calves.
He groaned.
“Granted I’ll be the prettiest boy you’ve ever travelled with. A little dirt on my face and the coat over my body—from a distance, I’ll pass.”
Not bloody likely. “And up close?”
“No one will be getting that close.”
James wanted to. He remembered how smooth and supple the skin of her hip was. Would her ankles cross if she were to wrap her legs around him without petticoats to hamper her? Would he feel every inch of her through the suede of the breeches?
“James?” She stared at him in the reflection. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” He licked his lips but couldn’t drag his gaze from her backside.
She turned from the mirror and slapped a palm against his cheek. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt but it drew him back to the present. “Pretend I am a boy.”
“I’m afraid that is never going to happen.” He willed his voice back to its usual cadence but the huskiness had overtaken. What would she do if he kissed her right then? Reasonable thought fled.
He cleared his throat and was about to forbid her to leave the room, perhaps make another suggestion as to how they might pass the morning, when Hobson exploded into the small space like cannon fire. “Pirates, Major. Making for the beach.”
Daniella stepped forwards, the cap on her now tightly bound hair. “My father?” she asked hopefully.
Hobson shook his head, his eyes wide when they glimpsed James’s battered face. He wisely did not ask questions. “These are real pirates, lass. Not your da.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’ve seen your da’s lot and this ain’t them. We have to go now.”
“Wait, you can’t be sure. We have to find out.”
James looked to Hobson, who shook his head so minutely anyone else might have missed the gesture. James turned the dagger in his hand and sheathed it in his boot. “We are leaving right now.”
He towed her from the room, all thoughts about her breeches and bare skin forgotten. “Do you have boots for her?” he asked Hobson.
“In the carriage. They’ll be a mite big but they’ll do.”
“We can’t leave like this until we are absolutely sure,” Daniella pleaded as they fled down the stair. “What about your bags and your clothes? And if it is my father and he wants to trade, we have to meet him halfway.”
“Where the rest of his crew can slay me? We meet on my terms, not his. We meet, as you said from the start, in his refuge, which he will protect from violence, including his own. If it is your father, and Hobson seems quite certain it is not, he can give chase. He will have to keep most of his men on the ship or the beach to protect it, yes?”
“Yes,” she said. “But—”
“No, Daniella. No buts. We need to leave. I will not have it end like this.”
She tugged against his hand, dragging him to a stop. He glared. She glared back.
“I won’t go. We have to be sure.”
James didn’t hesitate. He tugged her hand again until she was off-balance and then bent forwards, scooped her over his shoulder and kept going. She shrieked and lashed out but he didn’t pause. They’d stayed too long. He was lucky they hadn’t been murdered in their beds. Damn that innkeeper for his lies about treacherous shoals and hidden rocks.
They had to get as far away as they could. As fast as they could. He would not think on why her perfectly sane reasoning suddenly made no sense at all. He absolutely refused to wonder why the thought of trading her back to her father made his gut clench and his chest ache.
Bloody pirates!
Chapter Twenty
Riding atop a man’s shoulder had to just about be the most undignified way to travel. Her stomach jarred painfully on James’s bones with each of his leaps. He wasn’t walking anymore but neither could he run with her. She was heavier than she looked. She smiled and went lax. Like the last time he’d kidnapped her, she had to appear biddable until she could attempt an escape. If it was her father—and really, what other likeliness was there that another pirate followed? It wasn’t as though there were an abundance of them floating about, despite what the gossip papers reported—if it was her father, she would go to him and beg him to release Amelia and James’s mother. God, she didn’t even know the woman’s name. Her father would listen to her in this. He would. The blood thrummed in her veins with both excitement and trepidation.
“Hobson, you and Patrick ride behind but tell him to stay close. Give him one of the muskets if he doesn’t have his own. We only need to know how many there are and if they appear
