"You fiend! Release me!" Lady Catherine Redmond hissed her defiance at the man who had bound her wrists to the head of the bed. The cabin rocked gently, and Catherine once more shivered at the thought of being so far from civilization, out on the wild ocean, where passions reigned unchecked.
"Release you?" The dark eyes looked down at his helpless prey. "Never! You are mine, my proud beauty."
"Oh, god!" Catherine moaned, pulling at the scarf that encircled her wrists. "Oh, God will no one save me? Oh God-OH GODDDD… Oh, Goddddddd…Charles!!!"
Catherine's eyes rolled back in her head as her husband took his bound prize to the heavens and beyond. Her body quaked as she gasped and whimpered with delight, and she slipped into glorious sleep, her vision filled with memories of the long, languorous ocean voyage that was proving more blissful by the day.
***
The trip had been Charles' idea.
"After your ordeal, my love, it's time to leave England behind for a while."
"Ordeal" was certainly putting it lightly: Catherine had been thrown headlong into the villainous intrigues of her late husband Phillip, and his cohort, the despicable Colonel Lefanu. She had been abducted, threatened with death—and worse—and emerged with her life and honor intact through the intercession of Phillip's brother Charles, a man she'd been taught to despise, but had finally come to love... and to marry.
"You mean like Colonel Lefanu? He managed to leave." Catherine observed with some bitterness, recalling the Frenchman's escape from justice.
"You see? That is just what I mean." Charles shook his head. "That monster is gone from our lives, and an ocean voyage is just what you need to clear the last vestiges from your mind."
"Well, then—where shall we go?"
Charles smiled. "I had thought India."
Catherine caught her breath. "You mean—to see Father? Oh, Charles!" She jumped up and hugged her husband. Her father had been stationed in India since Catherine was a young girl, and the few years she had spent there with him had been the happiest of her life… until now.
"Yes, I could see no reason for me to wait until his regiment is returned home to finally meet my father in law," Charles agreed.
And that had been that. Days of excited planning and packing had followed, and in short order the two found themselves on board a small ship named The Golden Labrador.
The Labrador belonged to one of the companies that Charles had reclaimed from his late brother's fraudulent dealings, handling business post and some small supplies, and he had arranged for his bride and himself to travel as "supercargo".
Catherine was baffled. "Does that mean we sleep in the hold?"
Charles laughed. "It just means that it's a business voyage with only two passengers— we have a quiet, very private, cabin to ourselves, and have no responsibilities beyond my keeping of the cargo manifests." His eyes devoured his new bride—taking in the rose of her pale cheeks, the sweet berries of her lips, the firm swell of her breasts, and the long shining cape of her dark hair—and he nearly growled his delight: "I would prefer not to share this trip with any other 'sightseers', as there is only one sight that interests me."
And so it had been—days of glorious sun, stops along the way at fascinating ports of call, and only a small crew, friendly enough, but able to keep discreetly to themselves and allow the two lovers their solitude. As a young girl, Catherine had always found sea travel exciting; now in the fullness of womanhood, it positively suffused her senses, heightening every smell, taste, and touch, to a pitch of arousal.
It would have seemed impossible that her husband's looks could be improved upon, but something about the open sea and endless sunshine seemed to bring out the best in that curling dark hair, broad-shouldered form, and the dark eyes that could blaze with a consuming passion.
And if the days had been beautiful and exhilarating, the nights had been beyond any joy Catherine had ever imagined. Charles always seemed to know just when to "recapture" the strange circumstances of their first meeting, when he had been deceived into abducting the woman he would one day marry. Tonight had been no exception: Catherine had "struggled" against her bonds, before the crashing moment of ecstasy, and then fallen into blissful, exhausted sleep… until, in the dark hours of the early morning, she had heard and felt her husband stir.
"Charles?" Catherine heard her own voice thick with sleep as she rolled over.
"Hush," Charles admonished her. "I heard something."
Catherine blinked sleep out of her eyes, sitting up. "What did you hear?"
She raked back the tumbled mass of sable hair from her face and looked up at her husband. In the dim pre-dawn light of the tiny cabin, his powerful form was silhouetted at the foot of the stairs; the white silk shirt he had thrown on hung open over dark trousers, and he was barefoot. Catherine, now fully awake, shivered at the sight of the pistol in his right hand. He turned and spoke with quiet urgency.
"Stay here, and lock the door behind me."
"Charles, I want to help!"
"Stay here!" He kept his voice low as he slipped silently from the room and moved out of her sight, ascending the stairs to the main deck. Catherine closed the door behind him, throwing the latch, and straining her ears as she drew her thin nightdress close around her. What had he heard? There was what passed for silence on the boat—the creakings and groanings of the ship continued as before, the occasional seabird…
and then there was an explosion of noise! She heard voices raised, certain one of them was Charles', and then the report of a gun going off… another… a scream…
Charles!
Warning or no, her man was in danger. Heedless of her own safety, Catherine flew to the door and opened it.
"Charles?" she called. No response came, but what she could hear provided answer enough: there was a full-scale battle raging overhead, and the sounds coming through the bulkhead walls were terrifying: screams, scuffles, and gunshots. As the fighting seemed to draw closer, Catherine realized her folly— unarmed, she could do nothing to aid Charles, and betraying her presence might give whoever had boarded their ship some leverage over her husband.
She scrambled back into the room, slamming the door behind her, then stumbling as her foot caught in one of the disordered blankets that their passion had sent spilling to the floor, falling backwards to the bed before she had a chance to throw the latch. The door creaked back on its hinges, now half open again… and the footsteps were, indeed, much closer now. Someone was standing at the top of the staircase that led down to the landing outside her room… and was beginning to descend!
Catherine started toward the door, then realized it was too late to try and close it without being observed.
She looked wildly around the room for something to use as a weapon—Charles had brought no sword on the voyage, and had taken his gun with him. The food hamper was empty, and there wasn't even a small paring knife or piece of cutlery to be found— and her eyes lit upon the wine chest at the foot of the bed. Better than nothing. She crawled to it, scarcely daring to breathe, and lifted the lid as quietly as she could manage. She slipped a hand inside and quietly withdrew one of the heavy glass bottles, gritting her teeth lest the remaining bottles clink against each other. She was able to settle the lid back down just as the first shadow crossed the plane of the doorway.
What do to? The room was too small to offer many places to hide, her path up to the deck was blocked. One chance, she thought to herself. Surprise.
On tiptoe, watchful lest her nightdress catch on some bit of furniture, Catherine inched her way toward the door. She debated trying to slam it to anyway, and throw the latch, but doubted it was designed to resist the determined assault of the sort of brigand she knew to be just on the other side.
Scarcely breathing, she flattened herself back against the wall to the side of the door. From that angle, she watched the sliver of light that widened with the opening of the door… the wavering darkness of the shadow that slid down the stairs and across the bed… and there, the figure stood, a full step into the room, just inches in front of her and to the right. The mixture of pale light and shadow showed little beyond the gaudy scarlet jacket over black trousers, with a matching red silk head scarf. Catherine's anxious imagination filled in the details she couldn't see: the patched eye, the scarred cheek, the twisted mouth of depraved cruelty.
Gathering her courage, Catherine raised the bottle, breathed in as silently as she could, and swung the heavy cudgel down with all the strength she could muster... and heard the ancient wood beneath her feet creak as her weight shifted!
Catherine wanted to shriek a curse as the pirate turned toward the sound—the wine bottle didn't crack the villain's skull, but simply collided against the left shoulder, drawing a surprised grunt, but doing no further damage. Worst of all, the force of Catherine's swing, making so little impact, unbalanced her, sending her sprawling to the floor, face-first. Breath flew from her lungs, and the bottle flew from her fingers, rolling away under the bed.
The pirate's black leather boots clumped across the planks of the floor, standing over Catherine. The frightened girl flailed with her legs, catching the intruder's ankles, and sending the two of them into a jumble of sprawling limbs amid the rumpled bedclothing.
As the pirate staggered upright, Catherine knew she must make use of what advantage she still had. She leapt up, landing hard on the brigand's back, clawing for purchase—the throat, the face, anything she could hang onto, wrapping her legs about her foe's waist. This brought a gasp of surprise, and Catherine felt her purchase beginning to slip as the pirate twisted left and right to break the young woman's grip. The windmilling hands couldn't reach far enough back to dislodge Catherine, and as she was shaken back and forth, Catherine spotted something glittering in the dim light: the hilt of a knife projecting out from beneath the pirate's belt. With her legs starting to lose their hold, it was her last chance—she had to hold on long enough to grab it! She reached her left hand up and seized at the red silk scarf, her fingers digging into the mass of hair beneath.
"Aaaahh!" This time, her foe gave vent to a high, piercing cry that satisfied Catherine nearly as much as it startled her—had she really caused that much pain? Good!
The scarf started to slip under Catherine's grasp, finally sliding completely off, black hair spilling out, and she scrabbled her fingers to get more purchase in the thick mane while she strained to reach the knife. She felt her foe's head strain against her grip, grunting, and she twisted harder at the hair in her grasp… but by now the muscles in her legs had begun to droop from weariness, and the pirate was able to thrust backwards, slamming Catherine against the wall.
Once more, Catherine's breath fled from the impact, the knife hopelessly out of reach, her nerveless fingers pulling the scarf with her, and she slid down to the floor, gasping for air.
The pirate turned, breathing heavily, pushing back the torrent of black hair, glaring down at Catherine, now a terrified heap on the floor…
And Catherine found herself gasping once more, this time in astonishment: the garishly-clad figure with the river of silken black hair was a woman!
She stood bare inches under six feet, as best Catherine could guess, and her dusky skin and liquid brown eyes brought Catherine back to the India where she had spent much of her youth. Her tall figure was well-muscled, but lacked nothing of a woman's shape. The face was classically beautiful, with the slender nose and elegant features that she had seen decorate Indian temples dedicated to carnality and sensual pleasure.
Catherine tried once more to get to her feet, but shock and lack of breath made her movements slow and feeble. Her attempt to dash past the woman was foiled as the pirate simply took hold of Catherine's shoulders, and propelled her back further into the cabin.
She threw Catherine face-first across the bed, so that she lay with her waist at the edge of the mattress. As the pirate leapt up atop her, kneeling across the prone girl's legs, Catherine found her head and shoulders hanging off the side of the bed, forcing her to fight against gravity to even try and reach back to her foe, and obscuring her vision with the curtain of her dark hair that spilled to the floor. Unable to twist around, she reached feebly toward her captor, only to have steely fingers seize her left wrist. With a twist that sent pain shooting right up her arm, the pirate yanked hard at the pinioned limb, then began to encircle it with what felt like heavy silk.
Charles' cravat! The woman had found it on the bedpost, and was binding Catherine with her own husband's necktie! With the one wrist trapped, and the woman's weight holding her down, Catherine's resistance vanished. She was unable to prevent the woman from pulling her right arm back, and placing right wrist over left as she pulled the bonds taut, silk tough as steel when bound tightly around a woman's wrists.
Still gulping for air, Catherine tried to find enough breath to protest the indignity of her treatment. With her hands now bound and useless, she could sense the female brigand working at something else, as she used her legs to keep Catherine pinned in place.
"Who are you? What do you want?" Catherine wished she could be allowed to sit up or lie down, as being bent in half this way was exhausting.
For answer, the woman simply reached down to grab Catherine's hair, and pulled it up and back so that her head was bent backwards, pain radiating through her scalp, all the way down into her shoulders. The prisoner now saw that what the woman had been doing was tying a thick knot in the center of the red scarf that Catherine had pulled from her hair. It looked as though she had knotted it at least three times, maybe four, so that it was a full two inches thick. Even when she realized what the woman intended, there was little Catherine could do, as her present bent-back position put such strain on her throat already, that keeping her mouth closed was impossible. Instead, she had to accede miserably as the thick knot of red silk was forced past her teeth, and jammed deeply into her mouth. It had the musk of the woman's perfume on it, and its sweetness filled her head as the cloth was worked into place, atop her tongue and all the way into her cheeks. Catherine's jaws were forced wide by the intrusion, any sound she might make absorbed by the thick knot of silk.
The pirate now threw Catherine's hair forward over her head, so that she might knot the scarf tightly at the nape of the girl's neck. Catherine groaned in pain as her head, falling forward, was caught up short by the silk scarf biting into the corners of her mouth. The pirate tied three knots, one over the other, each one tightened like a hard blow delivered to the back of Catherine's neck.
Satisfied that she had secured her prey, the woman stepped off the bed, and the shift in weight caused Catherine to overbalance completely, falling down off the bed, landing painfully on her right shoulder. Her captor wasted no time, standing purposefully over her.
"Get up." The woman was breathing hard from her exertions, and Catherine glared at her over the gag, showing as much defiance as she could muster.
Contemptuous of her captive's show of courage, the woman reached down to pull Catherine to her feet by her hair.
"Uggghhh!!" A grunt of pain escaped past Catherine's gag as she felt the woman's fingers pull hard at the thick fistful of her long tresses and yank her head painfully back and down, forcing her to stare straight up at the ceiling. The pirate's other hand placed the knife blade at the side of her throat, and Catherine felt the woman's mouth at her ear.
"You like to pull hair, English bitch?" The pirate's voice was light with scorn and amusement, but the twist she gave to Catherine's imprisoned locks was hard and cruel. "Maybe you will enjoy it less this way. Now move!"
Bound and gagged, knife at her throat and hair clenched painfully, forced to look only straight up, Catherine had little choice but to comply: she allowed herself to be forced up the stairway, terrified that one slip of her foot would cause her to fall right onto the glittering blade that she could feel resting against the beating of her throat's pulse.