Page 6 of Ruthless, But for Her

When the ship her husband procured took on water before they ever left port, a sliver of hope blossomed in her chest. Joining Roland in the north could not be avoided, but perhaps the voyage would at least be delayed. Unfortunately, her husband's men secured passage on a merchant ship bound for Berwick, and her brief reprieve came to nothing.

She had spent the first hours of the crossing below-deck, certain she would never recover. Nell had stayed beside her, stroking her hair and saying very little, which was its own comfort. The maid had always known when silence served better than words.

By the second morning, the worst of it had passed. Cassia had ventured above-deck, breathed cold salt air, and made her uneasy peace with the sea. She had even retrieved the book from her trunk, the deep blue manuscript with gold etching that Nell had carried aboard for her, then settled near the stern cabin door with it open in her lap.

She was reading an Arthurian romance when a dark vessel appeared through the thinning fog, and her maid, who never stopped humming, went completely silent.

Cassia looked up.

The hull seemed to rise out of the mist, dark and unmarked, driven by long sweeps of oars rather than sail. No flag or heraldry she recognized flew above it. The merchant crew had seen it too. She heard it in the change of their voices, the sudden urgency of orders she could not parse. Nell stood very still at her side.

Cassia closed the book.

She was still holding it when they boarded.

There was no fight. That was the first thing that surprised her. The merchant's captain spoke a single word, and his men all moved to the rail with their hands open and their eyes down. The escort her husband had provided, six men in his livery, did the same. She had not thought men like that capable of surrender. But she understood, when she saw what came over the boarding plank, why they had not hesitated.

Standing before them was the most fearsome looking man Cassia had ever seen.

He had dark hair, not quite black, and skin weathered by wind and sun in equal measure. The scruff along his jaw did nothing to soften the line of it. Most would have called him handsome, if not for the way he looked at everything as though he had already decided what it was worth.

His gaze reached her.

She should have been frightened, and she was, more than she had been when the cabin went dark and she and Nell had pressed together, not knowing what would come next. Her grip tightened on the book. She took one step back before she caught herself.

You are a lady, Cassia.

She stilled. Lifted her chin and let the breath out slowly enough that no one would see it go.

“You, sir, gave us a scare.”

She tucked her hands into the folds of her gown. The man's brows rose, and then, just barely, the corner of his lips lifted.

“A scare.”

She glanced past him, took in the merchant captain in shackles, and stepped forward instinctively to see better. He was obliged to step back to allow it, which she suspected surprised him.

It was precisely as she had feared.

“So we are prisoners, then?”

We may have little means, but you are a lady, Cassia. Conduct yourself accordingly.

Her father's voice filled her mind. She had been hearing it her entire life. She attempted to let it settle her now, as she had learned to do when she first understood she would be married to Roland. But it was not enough, and the sea finally took her the way it had when they first left port.

Without warning, she turned and went to the rail.

She was dimly aware of hands at her waist, steadying her, keeping her from going over. She had no thought to spare for it. Whatever little she had eaten that morning came up and out into the North Sea, and with it, in some blind and wordless way, everything else: Roland, the voyage, the black sails, the man behind her whose gaze she could still feel between her shoulder blades.

When there was nothing left, she straightened.

A cloth was placed in her hand. Her hair, which had come loose, was drawn back from her face. She had not registered, until that moment, that it was he who held it.

She took the cloth, attended to her mouth with as much decorum as the situation allowed, then folded it neatly, and turned to hand it back to him.

He looked down at the folded cloth in his hand as though he had never seen such a thing before. As though he had not handed it to her himself.

His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. Cassia attempted to reconcile the boarding of their ship with his careful handling of her and found she could not. He had caught her at the rail because he thought she meant to go over. He had held her hair. What manner of man looked as he did and performed such an act?