The wind is stronger up here, and it disengages strands of my auburn hair from its carefully pinned arrangement. My skirts fly up briefly, revealing the saucy black pantalettes I wear underneath.
Locke isn’t standing at the helm anymore—Neelan is steering under Dolomon’s supervision, while Locke lounges in an ornate, high-backed chair with scarlet cushions. I noticed it in the hold days ago—it was probably on its way to the dining hall of some noble’s mansion before the pirates claimed it. Here on theArdent, in this setting of weather-beaten wood and salty wind, it should look out of place—but with Locke’s taut, muscled torso and long black legs draped over it, the chair somehow fits. It’s throne-like, indulgent, and his careless sprawl across the seat is both sexy and commanding.
“Put the officers’ food in there, Nick,” Locke says, jerking his thumb toward the navigator’s cabin. “And then bring my portion to me.”
I duck into the cabin and set the food in the recessed surface of the table. There’s no officers’ mess on theArdentas there would be on a merchant or military vessel; and though I’m used to it by now, it has always felt odd to me that everyone eats where they may, including those of the upper ranks. Back in Ivris, meals were a stately, regimented affair, with entire rooms devoted to the ceremony of dining. Occasionally I was allowed a tray in my room if I was feeling ill, but for most meals I had to be impeccably dressed and seated in my chair at the appointed time, and I wasn’t allowed to leave my seat until my mother or the lady hosting the meal dismissed the table.
What would my mother say if she could see me now, wearing scandalous clothes, preparing to serve dinner to the Pirate King where he lounges on a stolen throne in the open air?
The thought of my mother pains me more than it should. She and my father were exacting household rulers and strict disciplinarians, quick to catch their children behaving against social norms, yet oblivious to the horror unfolding right under their noses. When they punished Mordan and me for small social infractions, whipped us for embarrassing the family in petty ways, they had no idea of the vast pile of dark secrets we kept hidden from them. They didn’t know about the shack where I discovered Mordan’s latest playthings, or the mounds of fresh dirt at the back of our property. They thought I followed Mordan around with a little sister’s loving devotion, when in reality I stayed close to him so I could watch for his moods, sense their onslaught, and intervene before things got bloody.
I wasn’t able to prevent the incident with his fiancée and her family, and I’ve never forgiven myself for that. The deaths were Mordan’s doing—I know that—but I can’t help feeling responsible, too. When my brother ran away to sea at the tender age of seventeen, my resentment for my parents and my own guilt spread poisonous roots through my soul—roots I can feel even now.
The curtains in the navigator’s cabin are drawn, and the gloom of the space reminds me how my mother kept me in dark rooms away from the sun so as not to make my freckles worse. She forced me into lemon baths and coated my face with acidic pastes or whitening potions every night. Once I turned fifteen, she ordered the maids to paint my face thickly and powder my arms each day, and she would parade me around at soirees and luncheons, pushing me at various eligible bachelors.
I hated all of it, until I discovered a secret way of defying her, of ruining all her hopes that I’d make a respectable match. I conquered the men one by one on my terms, behind drapes, in privies, on sofas and against walls. On my knees or on my back, I ruined my prospects for years—until the day my parents announced my betrothal to the dull, near-sighted Duke of Throsen, and I had to acknowledge myself outwitted. Not entirely choiceless, though. I was twenty by then, old enough to get away. Old enough to search for the brother who haunted my nightmares.
Why should I care what my mother would think of me now? She has never cared to know me—she only cared about me as a chesspiece, a pawn on the family board, an asset to be skillfully employed for the advancement of our name and rank.
Picking up Locke’s bowl, I shove the memory of her aside and leave her ghost in the gloom of the navigator’s cabin where it belongs.
48
With the Pirate King’s dinner in hand, I return to the quarterdeck again. I hold out the dish to Locke, but he doesn’t move to take it.
A cunning grin spreads across his mouth, but his eyes are like blades of ice. “Come and feed me, Veronica.”
My teeth clench. Up here, just above the steps to the quarterdeck, he and I are in full view of anyone who isn’t belowdecks.
“Come,” he repeats, stretching out an imperious hand. Something flashes on his smallest finger—a ring I recognize. The family ring I dropped when Gorm and Tir attacked and undressed me. He must have found it.
Instinctively I move toward him. “That’s mine.”
“This?” He lifts the finger with the ring. “I thought as much. A little large for you, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I grit out. “But I still want it back.”
“You’ll have to earn it.” He grins at me, vengeful and dark.
So that’s how we’re playing it now. Enemies, the two of us, pretending to be lovers. A sick game, to be sure.
I step toward him, and Locke catches me by the waist and pulls me onto his left thigh. His legs are splayed wide, rakish and reckless. He keeps his left arm around my waist, with his hand spread across my hip. His right hand slides between my knees, nudging them slightly apart.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
“Enjoying the company I pay for,” he says. “Feed me, love.”
“With pleasure.” I scoop a generous spoonful from the steaming bowl and when he opens his mouth, I shove it straight in. I hope it scalds his tongue.
If it does, he doesn’t react. “I had the chair brought up this afternoon,” he says. “Do you like it?”
“It’s ostentatious,” I say. “Perfect for you. More stew?”
“Please.”
This time I shove the spoon so far back in his mouth that he almost gags. Fire leaps into his gaze, and he slides the hand between my knees a little farther along my inner thigh. “Easy, darling,” he mutters when he’s done chewing. “I could make you gag, too.”
A treacherous flare of heat rushes through my body at the image. I’m rather good at the act he’s suggesting—or so I was told by several of the most eligible bachelors in Ivris.
