Well, she knew what Rhystan thought of her.
No matter, she didn’t need him to save her.
But a second glimpse to the empty quarterdeck cost her dearly as a sneaky blow to her temple knocked her sideways. As she scrambled to fight the darkness crowding her vision, the man slammed into her body, taking them to the ground. He smelled worse than he looked, the foul stench of his breath blowing into her face.
“Got ye now, wench.” His tongue snaked out to lick her cheek, and she gagged at the unwashed smell of him. His hands tore at her shirt, clamping over one bound breast and squeezing roughly. “I knew ye weren’t a boy.”
Sarani snarled in his face, shoving her arm down between their bodies. “And I knew you weren’t a man.” With a howl, he went still, and Sarani knew what he felt—the point of her blade jammed right into the soft flesh of his testicles. “Touch me again, and you’ll be gelded, I promise you. Now, get the hell off me.”
But before he could move on his own accord, he was torn away like a piece of fluff.
Rhystan stood there, chest heaving and eyes blazing, holding the man by the nape of his neck. The smell of blood and urine permeated the air as he handed him off to a silent Gideon.
“Cap’n, I didn’t know she was yers, I swear,” he blubbered.
“She’s not mine,” Rhystan growled. “She’s not anyone’s property.”
He nodded at his grim quartermaster, and with one practiced flick of his wrist, Gideon flung the screaming man overboard. Sarani gasped, though she felt no sympathy for the blackguard. He’d shown her none. And if she’d been a weaker person without the means to defend herself, she could very well have been at his mercy. She stared at Gideon and swore she could see a twinkle and a glimmer of respect in those hardened eyes.
Or maybe it was pure, deadly delight. He scared her, but Asha insisted that he was a gentle giant. Though if her tenderhearted maid had seen him chuck a man over the side of a ship without batting an eyelash, she might reconsider her opinion.
Holding her shirt closed, Sarani propped herself up on one elbow, staring at Rhystan, who looked as though he was going to murder everyone. “I had it handled, you know.” She grinned and caught sight of Red’s mop of hair behind the captain. “By the—how do you say it again, Red?—ah, yes, the big, hairy ballocks.”
Red cackled. “Not his. They were probably the size of peas.”
Sarani rose and made a show of wiping the blood off her kukri on her pants and looked up to meet the wary eyes of the surrounding men. “I don’t know if any of you were friends with that piece of filth, but I swear you’ll sing like a nightingale if you come near me. I’m just as good with a pistol as I am with these. Steel or lead, your preference.”
“No one will touch you,” Rhystan snarled and then glared at the crew. “No one touches her. No one looks at her. No one sneezes in her direction, or you’re shark bait if she doesn’t gut you first. Understood?”
“Aye, Cap’n!”
“Now get the fuck back to work!”
They scattered like ants, until it was just a few of them standing there. Tej remained, but Sarani dismissed him with a quick jerk of her head. He left with reluctance, his gaze trained warily on Rhystan as if he didn’t like what he saw. And no wonder. The duke was furious. Sarani opened her mouth and shut it at the ferocious thunderstorm brewing on his face.
“Sodding hair on the devil’s arse, I should have turned back and braved the cyclone instead,” he muttered, raking a hand through his hair before turning his glare to her. There was more lightning than anything else in those gray-blue eyes fastened on her, and a wary trickle slid down her spine when he advanced on her, stopping short of crowding her. “What on earth were you thinking to fight him?”
Sarani narrowed her gaze at him. “Are you saying that was my fault? That I provoked him into cornering me and groping me?”
“No, of course not!” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “But you are a woman on a ship full of men, and not all of them are good men.”
“Clearly.”
His lips tightened. “This is why the Belonging isn’t a passenger ship. I can’t have eyes on you all the time.”
“You don’t have to. I can take care of myself.”
“And what if there’s more than one?”
She met his livid gaze with cool hauteur. “There won’t be.”
“Sarani, don’t be stubborn.”
Her breath caught at the same moment as he realized his slip and the soft use of her given name. Those unreadable eyes softened for the briefest of seconds, and time fell away.
They could have been anywhere—the ship, the river in Joor, reading to each other on a hillside, dancing in the palace ballroom like they’d never left it, his eyes on hers and brimming with desire. Brimming with something other than bitterness. Sarani’s ears felt hot, her brain a muddled mess. Ribbons of heat chased through her veins as an eternity of memory passed between them. An eternity of pleasure, pain, love, rage, promises, and betrayals. Ending in heartbreak.
The story of them. Told in a handful of heartbeats.
Rhystan exhaled, and time resumed. His eyes were pieces of flint. Empty of emotion, hollow of anything that had to do with her.
“I’ll see to it you have a guard.”
She shook her head to clear it. “That’s not necessary.”
“I’m the captain, Lady Lockhart, and this is my ship. Remember that. I’ve better things to do than worry about you, like dealing with the fact that we’re probably being followed by the British navy. Or worse.” He cursed softly as though he hadn’t meant to divulge that, but then sucked air through his teeth. “My cabin needs scrubbing. See to it.”
Without another word, Rhystan turned on his heel and walked away. But Sarani was too busy trying to calm her galloping heart as she peered out on the horizon to find the telltale speck in the distance. The minute she saw it, fear prickled over her skin.
It could be anything. A trading vessel. A navy ship. A passenger ship bound for England, just as they were. But she knew. She knew exactly who was on that ship.
And they were coming for her.
Eight
Sarani stood at the railing again, wishing she could steal the captain’s spyglass. It wasn’t to memorize the sun’s descent into the waiting cradle of the ocean or to appreciate the spectacularly gorgeous sunset that blazed across the sky and cast orange and pink swaths over the glasslike surface of the sea.
No, it was for the black speck on the horizon.
Was it her imagination, or was it getting bigger? She’d kept an eye on the ship for five days, and it was there every time she looked. The winds had died down, and the captain had resorted to steam for the rest of their journey to St. Helena. Though if that ship carried her enemy, it wouldn’t matter if the Belonging was docked at the island.