‘Ever see a tiger?’
‘Lots of them. And elephants and huge snakes and crocodiles and monkeys.’
‘Cor. I’d like to see those. Did you ride on the elephants?’
They asked questions, and she answered, for almost twenty minutes. She felt better, safer in their presence now. Almost safe enough to be alone with them, she thought and then caught Dawkins’s eye and almost recoiled. What the big man was thinking about was plain to see and her whole body cringed against Luke.
His hand stilled. ‘What?’ he murmured.
‘Nothing.’
He stood, pulling her to her feet. ‘Just time to show you that washing I want doing. Timmins, bring a bucket of hot water and one of cold from the well.’
‘I suppose you realise I have never washed a garment in my life, let alone a male one,’ Averil said as they walked back to the old hospital.
‘Men’s clothing ought to be easier,’ Luke said. ‘No frills, no lace, stronger fabric.’
‘Sweatier, dirtier, larger,’ Averil retorted. She lifted one hand and touched her neck where he had been stroking it. The skin felt warm and soft, and her own touch sent a shiver of awareness through her that was disconcerting. She had not wanted him to stop, she realised, shamed by her reaction. What was the matter with her? Was she naturally a complete wanton, or was it shock, or perhaps simply instinct to try to please the man who could protect her?
‘You are a belligerent little thing, aren’t you?’ Luke said as they stepped into the hut.
‘You would be belligerent under the circumstances,’ she snapped. ‘And I am not little. I am more than medium height.’
‘Hmm,’ he said, and turned, trapping her between the wall and his body. ‘No, not little at all.’
‘Take your hands off my … my breasts.’
‘But they are so delightful.’ He was cupping them in his big hands, the slight movement of his thumbs perceptible through the linen of the shirt.
‘Don’t,’ she pleaded, as much to her own treacherous body as to him.
‘But you like it. Look.’
Shamed, she looked down. Her nipples thrust against the fabric, aching, tight little points, demanding attention.
‘I cannot help that reaction, any more than you can help that, apparently.’ The bulge straining against his breeches was very obvious. Luke moved back a little and she remembered another of her brothers’ lessons. But his reactions were faster than hers. No sooner had she begun to raise her knee that she was flat against the stones, his weight pinning her.
‘Little witch,’ he said and bent his head.
The kiss was different standing up. Even though she was trapped Averil felt she had more control, or perhaps she was just more used to the sensations now. She found she no longer wanted to fight him, which was disconcerting. She moved her head to the side and licked into the corner of Luke’s mouth, then nipped at his lower lip, almost, but not quite hard enough to draw blood. He growled and thrust his pelvis against her, blatantly making her feel what she was doing to him.
Averil let him take her mouth again, aching, wanting, despite the part of her mind that was screaming Stop! She was going to have to sleep with this man again tonight—was he going to be able to control himself after this?
‘Damn it,’ Luke said. He lifted his head and looked down at her, his eyes dark, his breath short. ‘I think you’ve been sent to try my will-power to the limit—’
The door banged open behind them, and he turned away so abruptly that she almost fell. ‘Over there by the table, Timmins.’
The man put down the buckets and walked out while Averil hung back in the shadows behind the door. He must have guessed what they had been doing, she thought, her face aflame.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ she said the moment they were alone. ‘I cannot. I don’t understand how it makes me feel. I am not wanton, I am not a flirt. I don’t even like you! You are big and ugly and violent and—’
‘Ugly?’ Luke stopped sorting through the heap of linen in the corner and raised an eyebrow. Nothing else she had said appeared to have made the slightest impression on him.
‘Your nose is too big.’
‘It balances my jaw. I inherited it from my father.’ He tossed the tangle of clothing on to the table. ‘There is some soap on the shelf.’
‘Did you not hear a word I said just now?’ Averil demanded, standing in his path, hands on hips.
‘I heard,’ Luke said as he dragged her back into his arms and kissed her with such ruthless efficiency that she tottered backwards and sat down on the bed with a thump when he released her. ‘I just do not intend to take any notice of you losing your nerve.
‘You’ll get over it. Make sure the collars and cuffs are well scrubbed. You can dry them on the bushes on the far side of the rise. Just make certain you keep the hut between you and the line of sight from the sea.’
Averil stared at the unresponsive door as it closed behind him and wished she had listened and taken note when she had overheard the sailors swearing on board the Bengal Queen. It would be very satisfying to let rip with a stream of oaths, she was quite certain.
Castration, disembowelling and the application of hot tar to parts of a certain gentleman—if he deserved the name—would be even more satisfying. She visualised it for a moment. Then, seized with the need to do something physical, if throttling Luke was not an option, Averil shrugged out of the leather waistcoat, rolled up her sleeves and went to find the soap. It was just a pity there was no starch or she would make sure he couldn’t sit down for a week, his drawers would be so rigid.
She began to sort the clothing, muttering vengefully as she did so. None of it was very dirty—the captain was obviously fastidious about his linen. It also smelled of him, which was disconcerting. Was it normal to feel so flustered by a man that even his shirts made one think of the body that had worn them?
Averil searched for marks, rubbed them with the soap, then dropped those garments in the hot water. How long did they have to soak? She wished she had paid more attention to the women doing their washing in the rivers in India; they seemed to get everything spotless even when the water was muddy. And it was cold, of course.
She was scrubbing briskly at the wristbands of one shirt before she caught herself. What was she doing, offering comfort to the enemy like this? Let him launder his own linen—or do whatever he would have done if she hadn’t been conveniently washed up to do it for him. But then, she was clad in his shirt and he said he had no clean ones, so if she did not do it, goodness knew when she would get a change of linen herself.
Her fingers were as wrinkled as they had been when she had come out of the sea, and she had rubbed a sore spot on two knuckles, but the clothes were clean and rinsed at last. Wringing them dry was a task beyond her strength, she found, so she dumped the dirty water outside on the shingle, filled the buckets with the wet clothes and trudged up the slope towards the camp fire.
The buckets were heavy and she was panting by the time she could put them down. ‘Would someone who has clean hands help me to—?’ Luke was nowhere in sight and she was facing eight men, with Dawkins in the middle.
‘Aye, darlin’, I can help you,’ he drawled, getting to his feet.
‘Leave it out, Harry.’ Potts looked up from a half-skinned rabbit. ‘She’s the Cap’n’s woman and we can do without you getting the man riled up. He’s got a nasty temper when he’s not happy and then he’ll shoot you and then we’ll have