Regency Vows. Kasey Michaels

implications fell carelessly from his lips. She met it with a laugh and raked him with her gaze. “I assure you, Captain Warre, I have no interest in your...protection.”

      His mouth curved. “My apologies. It was not my intention to offer you a position as my mistress.” He returned her brazen physical assessment, his eyes lingering where they had no right to linger. “But the idea does have a certain appeal.”

      A throb of heat pulsed uninvited through intimate places. “I have a fortune independent from Dunscore,” she said, waving away his offers of assistance and protection. “If I lose the estate—” the possibility struck her momentarily mute “—Anne and I will have no reason to stay in Britain at all. And your debt will remain unpaid.”

      He closed the distance between them, all lithe muscle and power, his sea-blown hair giving him a ferocity she would likely never see again once they reached the civilized world of London. “If it doesn’t work—and I’m not saying it won’t—I’ll not live under this debt forever. My efforts will have to suffice, or you’ll have to accept some other form of payment.”

      “There is no other form of payment,” she scoffed, laughing. “You have nothing that I need, Captain—except your celebrity.” She started to turn away. “If you’re not interested in my plan—” She cut off when his hand curled around her arm.

      “If I am satisfied with my repayment,” he said with a tight smile, “it won’t matter what you need.”

      “Let go of me.”

      His green eyes bored into her, holding her as tightly as his hand. “This entire bargain is driven by my own sense of obligation.”

      “Which I should have guessed was false.” Except she could see in his eyes it ran bone-deep, and even now he couldn’t quite hide it.

      “Some debts cannot be repaid.”

      “An excellent excuse for default, Captain,” she snapped. It was impossible to wrest out of his grasp, so she pushed him instead.

      “Devil take it—” He lost his balance as the ship listed starboard, and for a moment she reeled with him, but almost immediately he regained his footing. In the next moment he pushed her against the wall and his mouth came down on hers with all the fury of an ocean tempest. She fought him, even as she opened her lips to drink him in. His kiss was half-crazed, fierce and possessive as the sea itself, surging through her blood in waves of desire unlike anything she’d ever felt.

      She tried to tear away and they knocked over a chair. He crushed her to his body, backing her hard against the wall. He felt magnificent, and she hated him.

      “Damn you!” She wanted him on her. Over her. In her.

      Away from her.

      He pushed up her tunic and found her breasts. She grabbed his shirt and felt the fabric tear, but the pleasure ripping through her body drowned all reason. She cried out with frustration. Outrage. Desire.

      Something—maybe his knee—banged against the wall. His mouth seared into hers, out of control. They stumbled against the fallen chair and he kicked it out of the way.

      Suddenly her cabin door flew open and crashed against the wall. She barely realized what was happening before William was there, tearing Captain Warre away from her.

      “Bloody he—” Captain Warre’s furious oath was cut off when William’s fist landed across his jaw, sending him reeling.

      “Bloody cur!” William caught Captain Warre by the shirt before he could fall and landed another hit across his jaw.

      “No!” Katherine shouted her reaction an instant before regaining her senses. “William, stop! Enough!”

      But William was beyond reason, and now it was Captain Warre whose back was to the wall as William drew his knife and held it to Captain Warre’s throat.

      “William!” Katherine commanded sharply. “Let him go.”

      Phil and India crowded into the doorway. “Katherine, are you all right?” Phil asked, her voice for once free of insinuation. Good God. They all thought he’d attacked her.

      “You filthy bastard,” William spat, nose to nose with Captain Warre, who silently stared at him. “You couldn’t wait a few more days to slake your lust on someone who’s willing?”

      “William!” Katherine repeated. “That’s enough. You misunderstand.”

      Finally William looked at her. Only the ship and Captain Warre’s breathing made a sound as she met William’s eyes. She raised her chin a notch, but still a wash of heat spread across her face.

      Phil’s comprehending voice filled the cabin. “Oh, dear.”

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      “NOT A SINGLE WORD.” Katherine marched to the upper deck with Phil on her heels. “Not one.” It was probably the most futile order she’d ever given. Besides, Phil didn’t need words. Everything she was thinking was written plain as ink on her face.

      Which was why Phil’s obedience was worse than anything she could have said. The silence stretched out, brimming with what had just happened below. Deep breaths of sea air didn’t cool the fire pounding through Katherine’s veins, and her body screamed to go downstairs and finish what Captain Warre had begun.

      Captain Warre. Captain Warre. The reality of what she’d just done was a battering ram forcing entrance into her mind. She craved him the way Papa had craved fast horses—recklessly and without regard to the consequences. If William had not interrupted—

      She would not think of that. Looking at Phil was out of the question, so she held her spyglass to her eye.

      Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore. “Say it.”

      Phil was silent a heartbeat longer. “I confess I don’t know what to say.” Humor edged Phil’s pretend dumbfoundedness. “Does this mean you’ll be moving him back to a cabin, after all?”

      “It’s not too late to throw you overboard,” Katherine snapped.

      Phil only laughed. “Yes, it is. I could swim to England from here.” The spyglass jolted as Phil tucked her hand into Katherine’s elbow. “You mustn’t be angry with yourself, dearest. Despite your better judgment, you find Captain Warre attractive—and understandably so.”

      “He tried to kill me.” The resentment she’d clung to for years sounded ridiculous with his taste still heady on her tongue.

      Phil ignored her. “The question is, what will you do about it once you arrive in London?” She lowered her voice. “An affair may work brilliantly to your advantage. What better to motivate him into championing your cause? Keep him hungering after your charms and see if he doesn’t press your case most urgently.”

      “Your imagination has run wild.”

      “Was it my imagination, or did Captain Warre have his hands inside your—”

      “Enough!” Katherine pulled her arm from Phil’s grasp. “What you saw was not part of a master plan to whore myself for Dunscore. It was an accident.” A moment of weakness, after she’d worked so hard to be strong. She focused her spyglass on the distant ribbon of land they’d been paralleling. “I hate him.” She hated what he stood for, what he made her remember—the person she’d been when he’d fired on the Merry Sea. Vulnerable. Terrified. At the mercy of others, in so many ways.

      “Then use him and be done with him,” Phil suggested in all seriousness.

      The desire to see him, to touch him, seemed to have a life of its own. The kiss had turned the whole thing into a damnable mess that had to be stopped before it went any further. She lowered the spyglass. “He believes a few words to the right people will turn the bill under. There will be little