Averil turned her head away, chin up, so that she did not have to look at them and read the avid imaginings in their eyes. She was not the only one thinking about what would happen here tonight.
‘Come and eat.’ Luke pushed the key into his pocket and moved away from the door when they had gone. ‘I have found clothes for you. They will be too large, but they are clean.’ He watched her as she trailed her sheet skirts to the chair. ‘I’ll light the fire, you are shivering.’
‘I am not cold.’ She was, but she did not want to turn this into a travesty of cosy domesticity, with a fire crackling in the grate, candles set around and food and wine.
‘Of course you are. Don’t try to lie to me. You are cold and frightened.’ He stated it as a fact, not with any sympathy or compassion in his voice that she could detect. Perhaps he knew that kind words might make her cry and that this brisk practicality would brace her. He lit a candle, then knelt and built the fire with a practised economy of movement.
Who is he? His accent was impeccable, his hands, although scarred and calloused, were clean with carefully trimmed nails. Half an hour with a barber, then put him in evening clothes and he could stroll into any society gathering without attracting a glance.
No, that was not true. He would attract the glances of any woman there. It made her angrier with him, the fact that she found him physically attractive even as he repelled her for what he was, what he intended to do. How could she? It was humiliating and baffling. She had not even the excuse of being dazzled by a classically handsome face or charm or skilful flirtation. What she felt was a very basic feminine desire. Lust, she told herself, was a sin.
‘Eat.’ The fire blazed up, shadows flickered in the corners and the room became instantly warmer, more intimate, just as she had feared. Luke poured wine and pushed the beaker towards her. ‘And drink. It will make things easier.’
‘For whom?’ Averil enquired and the corner of his mouth moved in what might have been a half smile. But she drank and felt the insidious warmth relax her. Weaken her, just as he intended, she was sure. ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’
‘Writing bad poetry, beachcombing.’ He shrugged and cut a hunk of cheese.
‘Don’t play with me,’ she snapped. ‘Are you wreckers? Smugglers?’
‘Neither.’ He spared the cheese a disapproving frown, but ate it anyway.
‘You were Navy once, weren’t you?’ she asked, on sudden impulse. ‘Are you deserters?’
‘We were Navy,’ he agreed and cut her a slice of bread as though they were discussing the weather. ‘And if we were to return now I dare say most of us would hang.’
Averil made herself eat while she digested that. They must be deserters, then. It took a lot of thinking about and she drank a full beaker of wine before she realised it had gone. Perhaps it would help with what was to come … She pushed the thought into a dark cupboard in the back of her mind and tried to eat. She needed her strength to endure, if not to fight.
Luke meanwhile ate solidly, like a man without a care in the world. ‘Are you running to the French?’ she asked when the cheese and the cold boiled bacon were all gone.
‘The French would kill us as readily as the British,’ he said, with a thin smile for a joke she did not understand.
The meal was finished at last. Luke pushed back his chair and sat, long legs out in front of him, as relaxed as a big cat. Averil contemplated the table with its empty platters, bread crumbs and the heel of the loaf. ‘Do you expect me to act as your housemaid as well as your whore?’ she asked.
The response was immediate, lightning-swift. The man who had seemed so relaxed was on his feet and brought her with him with one hand tight around her wrist. Luke held her there so they stood toe to toe, breast to breast. His eyes were iron-dark and intense on her face; there was no ice there now and she shivered at the anger in them.
‘Listen to me and think,’ he said, his voice soft in chilling contrast to the violence of his reaction. ‘Those men out there are a wolf pack, with as much conscience and mercy as wolves. I lead them, not because they are sworn to me or like me, not because we share a cause we believe in, but because, just now, they fear me more than they fear the alternatives.
‘If I show them any weakness—anything at all—they will turn on me. And while I can fight, I cannot defeat twelve men. You are like a lighted match in a powder store. They want you—all of them do—and they have no scruples about sharing, so they’ll operate as a gang. If they believe you are my woman and that I will kill for you, then that gives them pause—do they want you so much they will risk death? They know I would kill at least half of them before they got to you.’
He released her and Averil stumbled back against the table. Her nostrils were full of the scent of angry male and her heart was pattering out of rhythm with fear and a primitive reaction to his strength. ‘They won’t know if I am your woman or not,’ she stammered.
‘You really are a little innocent.’ His smile was grim and she thought distractedly that although he seemed to smile readily enough she had never seen any true amusement on his face. ‘What do they think we’ve been doing every time I come down here? And they will know when they see you, just as wolves would know. You will share my bed again tonight and you will come out of this place in the morning with my scent on your body, as yours has been on mine these past days. Or would you like to shorten things by walking out there now and getting us both killed?’
‘I would prefer to live,’ Averil said and closed her fingers tight on the edge of the table to hold herself up. ‘And I have no doubt that you are the lesser of the two evils.’ She was proud of the way she kept her chin up and that there was hardly a quiver in her voice. ‘Doubtless a fate worse than death is an exaggeration. You intend to let me out of here tomorrow, then?’
‘They need to get used to you being around. Locked up in here you are an interesting mystery, out there, dressed like a boy, working, you will be less of a provocation.’
‘Why not simply let me go? Why not signal a boat and say you have found
me on the beach?’
‘Because you have seen the men. You know too much,’ he said and reached for the open clasp knife that lay on the table. Averil watched as the heavy blade clicked back into place.
‘I could promise not to tell anyone,’ she ventured. ‘Yes?’ Again that cold smile. ‘You would connive at whatever you suspect we are about for the sake of your own safety?’
‘I …’ No, she could not and she knew it showed on her face.
‘No, I thought not.’ Luke pocketed the knife and turned from the table. ‘I will be back in half an hour—be in bed.’