While it was easy to ignore the beads of sweat on his brow attesting to the strain he’d placed on his body, it wasn’t as easy to ignore the evident strength in the hard muscled thighs trapping her securely on the bed.

And even harder to ignore the implication of his threat.

‘Honour? You killed my father, that proves you have little honour, Dunstan.’ She turned her head away from the heat glimmering in his eyes.

He drew her head back so she faced him and Isabella fought the dread overtaking her shaking limbs.

His breath was hot against her cheek, his lips trailed flames across her skin. He paused, his mouth a hairsbreadth above her own, pinned her with his stare and asked, ‘Why should I show you more honour than Glenforde did when last he visited Dunstan?’

Her chest tightened even more until her breaths were ragged gasps for air. His nearness, the physical contact of their bodies made thinking almost as impossible.

‘I am not Glenforde.’ It was the only answer that could find its way through the confusion and fear casting a fog over her thoughts.

He rose to stand over her. ‘No you are not Glenforde. But you were to become his wife and you are here. Forget not your place, Isabella.’

Silently, she watched him exit the cabin. Relief washed through her, making her limp with near exhaustion.

Even though he’d told her that Glenforde had murdered someone on Dunstan—someone young, a child—she had no way of knowing if the crime was real or imagined. She couldn’t help but wonder what had held Dunstan’s temper in place. Had it been her reminder that she wasn’t Glenforde? Or had he somehow sensed her confused fear and relented?

This was not a man to take for granted. He was more of a threat than she’d first thought. This man, above all others, seemed to have the power to reduce her to a mindless muddle with little more than a look.

She couldn’t begin to imagine how she would have reacted had he carried through with his threat. Would she have fought him with every fibre of her being?

Or would she have followed the whispered longings of her traitorous body?

The only thing she knew for certain was that she needed to take charge of her wayward emotions before she became the greater threat to her well-being. Otherwise, she would bring about her own downfall.

Chapter Five

Richard leaned against a timber beam long enough to catch his breath before climbing the ladder to the open aft deck above. The hardest part of this venture was to have been the actual kidnapping and making a hasty retreat towards Dunstan unscathed.

His throbbing shoulder reminded him that he hadn’t escaped unscathed. But at this moment, his injury was the least of his concerns. What bothered him was the uneasy feeling that there was more to his fragmented dreams than he could fathom.

He knew from the unquenchable dryness of his mouth that Matthew had drugged him. The lingering bitter taste meant the man had probably broken into their limited stores of opium. While the concoction was a pain reliever of miraculous proportion, it left the patient’s mind foggy for days afterwards.

Still, the memory of a soft, warm body next to him on the pallet was too vivid to have been only a dream. Why would his mind have conjured gentle hands and a hushed soothing whisper to ease him when the pain grew close to unbearable?

His past experience with women hadn’t led him to believe they were gentle or soothing with any except their offspring. Not for one heartbeat could he imagine Agnes easing anyone’s pain but her own.

Yet in his dreams it had been a woman. There was only one woman aboard this ship—Isabella of Warehaven. Had she soothed him, gentled his need to rage against the agony chasing him?

Impossible.

None of it made any sense. And it was that unexplained senselessness that had him worried that marrying this woman would prove more difficult than the act of capturing her.

Why couldn’t she be a few years younger or a great many years older? Either one would have made her less attractive in his mind, drugged or not.

Unfortunately, she was a woman full grown and too obviously aware of the untried desires teasing her body. Going into a battle without armour and weapons would be less dangerous than being in her company overlong.

When he’d loomed over her, threatening her, he’d hoped to see a glimmer of fear. Even though that had been his intent, it wasn’t fear shimmering in her wary gaze—it had been an awareness of him, followed by curiosity and then confusion about what she felt.

Once he’d recognised her emotions, his body had threatened to betray him. The vision of their naked limbs entwined as he brought her across the threshold into womanhood had nearly been his undoing.

Nobody would have stopped him. They were soon to be wed. Had he been physically able, he could easily have taken her, shown her the pleasures of the flesh and then called it revenge for what her betrothed had done to his family. And no one would have faulted him.

But Isabella of Warehaven was not the object of his revenge. She was only the means to an end. He needed to remember that.

This desire, this unbidden lust for her was nothing more than a drug-induced torment that could and would fade with time. He would simply need to keep a tight rein on his desires until that time came.

Richard sighed and leaned on the rail for support. If he was this breathless and shaken from what little physical exertion he’d performed since rising from his bed, reining in his desires should prove an easy task.

Boisterous laughter from the men on the deck drew his attention. By the nods in his direction it was apparent that he was the focus of their conversation.

Richard straightened, squared his shoulders and then stepped away from the railing. Regardless of his injury he was not about to appear weak, or incapable of command, in front of his men.

He pinned a hard stare on Theodore, the largest in the group. When the guffaws ceased abruptly, he asked, ‘What amuses you?’

Theodore shuffled his feet, batted at one of the other men, then answered, ‘Nothing, my lord.’

At Richard’s raised eyebrow, he added, ‘We are simply glad to see you up and about.’

While they might be relieved to see him up, he resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the obvious attempt to garner his good graces. Richard doubted if his health had been the sole topic of their amusement.

If he knew anything about his men, it was that they enjoyed a good gossip almost as much as they enjoyed fighting. At times they were as bad—if not worse—than the women of Dunstan’s village. There was little doubt in his mind they’d been making assumptions about him and Isabella.

Assumptions that might have been on target had he not been unconscious.

He bore her no ill will, but neither did he care overmuch about her feelings. For the most part she was unknown to him, he knew very little about her, something he needed to resolve since she would become his wife in a matter of days.

Richard frowned and gingerly moved his shoulder about. The men aboard this ship knew little about mixing potions or salves, meaning the woman had probably saved his life. Regardless of his hatred for her betrothed, he did owe her something.

His gaze settled south, towards the Continent for a moment, and then with a heavy sigh he climbed down the ladder to speak to his men before heading back into his cabin.

* * *

Isabella flicked her thumbnail at the dried mud on her slippers. They were ruined beyond repair, but she hoped the pearls could be salvaged.

Her father had given her and her sister a bag to share. Every night for a week she and Beatrice had painstakingly attached the small pearls to their slippers. She’d formed hers into the shape of a flower, while her sister had spiralled hers around the edges.