"You forgot your port."

She gasped quietly as she turned. Hugh Winston was standing beside her, holding out a tankard. "Well, do you care to take it?" He smiled and glanced down at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"My, but that was no time at all." She reached for the tankard, then looked back toward the table where her wet shift lay.

"Grounding a ship's no trick. You just weigh the anchor and pray she comes about. Getting her afloat again's the difficulty." He leaned against the window frame and lifted his tankard. "So here's to freedom again someday, Katy. Mine, yours."

She started to drink, then remembered herself and turned toward the table to retrieve her shift.

"I don't expect you'll be needing that."

She continued purposefully across the cabin. "Well, sir, I didn't expect . . ."

"Oh, don't start now being a coquette. I like you too much the way you are." A stroke of lightning split down the sky behind him. He drank again, then set down his tankard and was moving toward her.

"I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"Take it as a compliment. I despise intriguing women." He seemed to look through her. "Though you do always manage to get whatever you're after, one way or other, going about it your own way." A clap of thunder sounded through the open stern windows. "I'd also wager you've had your share of experience in certain personal matters. For which I suppose there's your royalist gallant to thank."

"That's scarcely your concern, is it? You've no claim over me." She settled her tankard on the table, reached for his velvet doublet--at least it was dry--and started draping it over her bare shoulders. "Nor am I sure I relish bluntness as much as you appear to."

"It's my fashion. I've been out in the Caribbees too long, dodging musket b.a.l.l.s, to bother with a lot of fancy court chatter."

"There's bluntness, and there's good breeding. I trust you at least haven't forgotten the difference."

"I suppose you think you can enlighten me."

"Well, since I'm wearing your breeches, which appear meant for a gentleman, perhaps it'd not be amiss to teach you how to address a lady." She stepped next to him, her eyes mischievous. "Try repeating after me. 'Yours is a comely shape, Madam, on my life, that delights my very heart. And your fine visage might shame a cherubim.'" She suppressed a smile at his dumbfounded look, then continued. "'Those eyes fire my thoughts with promised sweetness, and those lips are like petals of the rose . . .' "

"G.o.d's blood!" He caught her open doublet and drew her toward him. "If it's a fop you'd have me be, I suppose the rest could probably go something like '. . . begging to be kissed. They seem fine and soft.

Are they kind as well?'" He slipped his arms about her and pulled her against his wet jerkin.

After the first shock, she realized he tasted of salt and gunpowder. As a sudden gust of rain from the window extinguished the sea lamp, she felt herself being slowly lowered against the heavy oak table in the center of the cabin.

Now his mouth had moved to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, as he half-kissed,

half-bit her nipples--whether in desire or merely to tease she could not tell. Finally she reached and drew his face up to hers.

"I'm not in love with you, Captain Winston. Never expect that. I could never give any man that power over me." She laughed at his startled eyes. "But I wouldn't mind if you wanted me."

"Katy, I've wanted you for a fortnight." He drew back and looked at her. "I had half a mind not to let you away from this ship the last time you were here. This time I don't plan to make the same mistake.

Except I don't like seeing you in my own silk breeches."

"I think they fit me very nicely."

"Maybe it's time I showed you what I think." He abruptly drew her up and seized the string at her waist. In a single motion, he pulled it open and slipped away the striped legs. Then he admired her a moment as he drew his hands appreciatively down her long legs. "Now I'd like to show you how one man who's forgot his London manners pays court to a woman."

He pulled her to him and kissed her once more. Then without a word he slipped his arms under her and cradled her against him. He carried her across the cabin to the window, and gently seated her on its sill. Now the lightning flashed again, shining against the scar on his cheek.

He lifted her legs and twined them around his shoulders, bringing her against his mouth. A glow of sensation blossomed somewhere within her as he began to tease her gently with his tongue. She tightened her thighs around him, astonished at the swell of pleasure.

The cabin was dissolving, leaving nothing but a great, consuming sensation that was engulfing her, readying to flood her body. As she arched expectantly against him, he suddenly paused.

"Don't stop now . . ." She gazed at him, her vision blurred.

He smiled as he drew back. "If you want lovemaking from me, you'll have to think of somebody besides yourself. I want you to be with me, Katy Bedford. Not ahead."

He rose up and slipped away his jerkin. Then his rough, wet breeches.

He toyed with her s.e.x, bringing her wide in readiness, then he entered her quickly and forcefully.

She heard a gasp, and realized it was her own voice. It was as though she had suddenly discovered some missing part of herself. For an instant nothing else in the world existed. She clasped her legs about his waist and moved against him, returning his own intensity.

Now the sensation was coming once more, and she clung to him as she wrenched against his thighs. All at once he shoved against her powerfully, then again, and she found herself wanting to thrust her body into his, merge with him, as he lunged against her one last time.

Then the lightning flared and the cabin seemed to melt into white.

After a moment of quiet, he wordlessly took her in his arms. For the first time she noticed the rain and the salt spray from the window washing over them.

"G.o.d knows the last thing I need now is a woman to think about." He smiled and kissed her. "I'd probably be wise to pitch you out to sea this minute, while I still have enough sense to do it. But I don't think I will."

"I wouldn't let you anyway. I'm not going to let you so much as move.

You can just stay precisely where you are." She gripped him tighter and pulled his lips down to hers. "If anything, I should have done with you, here and now."

"Then come on. We'll go outside together." He lifted her through the open stern window, onto the quartergallery. The skies were an open flood.

She looked at him and reached to gently caress his scarred cheek. "What was that you were doing--at the first? I never knew men did such things." Her hand traveled across his chest, downward. "Do . . . do women ever do that too?"

He laughed. "It's not entirely unheard of in this day and age."

"Then you must show me how. I'll wager no Puritan wife does it."

"I didn't know you were a Puritan. You certainly don't make love like one."

"I'm not. I want to be as far from them as I can be." Her lips began to move down his chest.

"Then come away with me." He smoothed her wet hair. "To Jamaica."

"Jamaica?" She looked up at him in dismay. "My G.o.d, what are you saying? The Spaniards . . ."

"I'll manage the Spaniards." He reached down and kissed her again.

"You know, after this morning, up on the Point, I'd almost believe you." She paused and looked out at the line of warships on the horizon, dull shadows in the rain. "But n.o.body's going to leave here for a long time now."

"I will. And the English navy's not going to stop me." He slipped his arms around her and drew her against him. "Why not forget you're supposed to wed Anthony Walrond and come along? We're alike, you and me."

"Hugh, you know I can't leave." She slid a leg over him and pressed her thigh against his. "But at least I've got you here tonight. I think I already fancy this. So let's not squander all our fine time with a lot of talk."