‘Which?’ He raised one eyebrow, infuriating her further. ‘The answers are—possibly, but it might be a profitable risk to take for the reward and, no, not naïve, just somewhat sheltered from this sort of thing.’
‘What sort of thing? Double-dealing, back-stabbing, money-grubbing treachery? I thought you disapproved of betrayal and disloyalty.’
‘I do, when I’m dealing with human beings with some basic moral sense. This lot are fair game.’ There was the sound of footsteps on the boards. Nathan drew back and added, at a normal volume, ‘And next time, do what you’re told, when you’re told, or you’ll get more than a cuff in the mouth. Understand?’
Over his shoulder Cutler loomed. ‘Yessir, Mr Stanier,’ Clemence said, nodding frantically and holding the kerchief to her mouth. ‘Sorry, sir.’
‘Let me know when you get tired of the brat, Stanier,’ Cutler said, his gaze sliding over Clemence. ‘I’m sure we’ll find a use for him.’
‘Not while I’ve a pile of washing needing doing,’ Nathan said easily. ‘Shift yourself, Clem, I want that cabin shipshape when I come down.’
Escaping below decks was a relief, even with a pile of dirty clothes to wash in the hot seawater she dipped from the cook’s big cauldron. He made no fuss about her taking fresh for rinsing either, with the supply now easily replenished.
Clemence scrubbed and wrung and dipped, regarding her wrinkled fingers with something like dismay. Her skin was becoming tanned, her fingernails chipped, the soft palms a thing of the past. How pampered she had been, she realised, pushing sweaty hair back from her forehead and attacking her stained trousers.
She had supervised the household, studied her Spanish and French and her music, written to friends and relatives, shopped—and thought herself busy. The promised London Season would have been nothing but shopping and pleasure with only one task before her, the finding of a suitable husband.
Well, she wasn’t going to find one now, even if she emerged alive and unscathed from this adventure. Clemence sat back on her heels, jolted by the thought. She had been so set on escaping from the Naismiths that the consequences had simply not occurred to her.
She had never found a gentleman on Jamaica who stirred more than a flutter in her heart and she had cherished no particular daydream of the one she would find in London, but it was a shock to realise that no gentleman was going to want her now, virgin or not.
And the fact that the only man who did stir her was Nathan Stanier was not much consolation, either. She had a lowering thought that the effect he had on her was purely physical, which probably showed she was wanton, and the notion that she was falling in love with him was simply the product of enforced intimacy, gratitude that he had saved her and the disturbing effect of whatever it was that seemed to spark between them.
Just sex, Clemence thought gloomily, sucking the finger she had rubbed raw in an attempt to get the coffee stains out of her shirt. It certainly was for him. All she was to Nathan Stanier was an inconvenient stray who brought the added complication—to one who had at least been brought up as a gentleman—that if he made love to her he would probably feel guilty about it afterwards.
She ought to feel guilty just thinking about sex, she knew that. Well-bred young women had to pretend they knew nothing about it and did not want to know either. The first was nonsense, of course. You couldn’t live on a tropical island, surrounded by burgeoning fertility, hot nights and the amazingly lax morals of a good part of the European population without grasping rather more than the essentials.
As for the second unspoken rule, well, she had never wanted a man before, so the subject had been of academic interest up to now. There had been Mr Benson, of course, whose classically handsome profile had troubled her dreams a little for a week or two, and the oddly flustered feeling that the attempts at flirtation of some of the bolder naval officers provoked, but that was all.
So this almost constant awareness of her own body, the slightly breathless feeling of anticipation the entire time, the embarrassingly persistent pulse that made her want to squeeze her legs together in a vain attempt to calm it, those were all Nathan Stanier’s doing. Those two kisses, one so gentle, one so angry, had completely undone her, plunged her into a state where all she wanted was to have him make love to her. Completely. After all, if she survived this she was going to be ruined. She might as well get some benefit out of it…
‘Penny for them?’
The bar of soap shot out of her clutching fingers and skidded across the cabin. Clemence twisted round with a muffled shriek, lost her balance and sat down in a puddle. Nathan, just inside the door, regarded her with that infuriating eyebrow raised and an expression on his face that convinced her that she must look a complete idiot. A completely undesirable idiot.
Her face, of course, would be scarlet, what with lust and embarrassment and the heat and the steam from the hot water. Her hair, she could feel, was hanging in lank rats’ tails, she had washerwoman’s fingers—and it was all his fault.
Clemence counted to ten, in Spanish, backwards, thought, Imagine you’re at dinner at the King’s House with the Governor, and managed not to shriek at him. ‘I am hot, I am tired, I am upset and I have about a hundredweight of wet washing to wring out,’ she articulated with dangerous calm and produced a small tight smile that had the desired effect of lowering that eyebrow.
‘Right.’ He came fully into the cabin, shut the door and retrieved the soap from under her bunk. ‘Let’s tackle the easy things first. I’ll wring. Do you know where you can hang these out?’
‘Mr Street showed me, between decks, forr’ ard of the sail-maker’s station.’ This was the man she was having utterly improper fantasies about and here they were, discussing the laundry. Something of the trouble in her thoughts must have been reflected on her face because, as Nathan heaved the tub of wet clothes on to the table, he regarded her quizzically.
‘I was thinking about what is going to happen to me if I ever manage to get out of this,’ she admitted.
‘We’ll think of something.’ He began to twist the sopping garments, the tendons on his wrists standing out sharply. Clemence watched the play of muscles under the thin linen sleeves. Those were the hands that had pinned her to the bulkhead a short while ago, had made her feel helpless and powerful, both at the same time. She wanted to feel them on her again, wanted to try his strength, stroke his naked skin, lick the paler skin just below the lobe of his ear…
‘Put them in here.’ She snatched up the empty water pail and put it on the table, almost hopping from foot to foot in her anxiety to be out of the cabin. It was suddenly too small. Or perhaps he was too big.
Nathan was still t
here when she returned, only now he was stuffing things into the big leather satchel. ‘Where are you going?’ He wasn’t leaving, surely?
‘I told McTiernan I want to go along to the headland, get height and take bearings. I thought we could deal with some of your other woes while we were at it.’ He was going to make love to her? There was silence while she stared at him, feeling the blood ebb and flow under her skin. ‘Clem? You don’t mind a walk, do you? You said you were feeling hot and tired—the exercise will do you good.’
‘Right, yes, exercise, of course,’ she gabbled. He wasn’t a mind reader, the words Take Me were not emblazoned on her forehead, he was talking about her complaints, not her fantasies. Clemence struggled for some poise. ‘Can I help with anything?’
‘Go to the galley, get something to take with us to eat.’ He tossed her another satchel. ‘I’ll see you on deck in a minute.’