“Well, that’s an easily gratified wish, to be sure.” He waved a casual hand toward the shore. “Roanoke.” He shucked his coat, tossing it carelessly over the stool. The linen of his shirt was crumpled, and clung damply to his chest and shoulders.

“Ye’d best take off the gown, darlin’; it’s hot.”

He reached for the strings that tied his shirt, and she moved abruptly away from the bed, glancing round the cabin, searching the shadows for something that could be used as a weapon. Stool, lamp, logbook, bottle … there. A piece of wood showed among the rubble on the desk, the blunt end of a marlinespike.

He frowned, attention fastened momentarily on a knot in the string. She took two long steps and seized the marlinespike, yanking it off the desk in a shower of rubbish and clanging oddments.

“Stand back.” She held the thing like a baseball bat, gripped in both hands. Sweat streamed down the hollow of her back, but her hands felt cold and her face went hot and cold and hot again, ripples of heat and terror rolling down her skin.

Bonnet looked at her as though she had gone mad.

“Whatever will ye be after doing with that, woman?” He left off fiddling with his shirt and took a step toward her. She took one back, raising the club.

“Don’t fucking touch me!”

He stared at her, eyes fixed wide, pale green and unblinking above a small, odd smile. Still smiling, he took another step toward her. Then another, and the fear boiled off in a surge of rage. Her shoulders bunched and lifted, ready.

“I mean it! Stand back or I’ll kill you. I’ll know who this baby’s father is, if I die for it!”

He had raised a hand, as though to grasp the club and jerk it away from her, but at this, he stopped abruptly.

“Baby? You are with child?”

She swallowed, her breath still thick in her throat. The blood hammered in her ears, and the smooth wood was slick with sweat from her palms. She tightened her grip, trying to keep the rage alive, but it was already dying.

“Yes. I think so. I’ll know for sure in two weeks.”

His sandy eyebrows lifted.

“Hm!” With a short grunt, he stepped back, surveying her with interest. Slowly, his eyes traveled over her, appraising her one bared breast.

The sudden spurt of rage had drained away, leaving her breathless and empty-bellied. She kept hold of the marlinespike, but her wrists quivered, and she lowered it.

“Is that the way of it, then?”

He leaned forward and reached out, quite without lascivious intent now. Startled, she froze for an instant, and he weighed the breast in one hand, kneading thoughtfully, as though it were a grapefruit he meant to buy at market. She gasped and hit at him one-handed with the club, but she had lost what readiness she had, and the blow bounced off his shoulder, rocking him but having little other effect. He grunted and stepped back, rubbing at his shoulder.

“Could be. Well, then.” He frowned, and tugged at the front of his breeches, adjusting himself without the slightest embarrassment. “Lucky we’re in port, I suppose.”

She made no sense whatever of this remark, but didn’t care; apparently he had changed his mind upon hearing her revelation, and the feeling of relief made her knees go weak and her skin prickle with sweat. She sat down, quite suddenly, upon the stool, the club clanking to the floor beside her.

Bonnet had put his head out into the corridor, and was bellowing for someone named Orden. Whoever Orden was, he didn’t come into the cabin, but within a few moments, a voice mumbled interrogatively outside.

“Fetch me down a whore from the docks,” Bonnet said, in the casual tone of one ordering a fresh pint of bitter. “Clean, mind, and fairly young.”

He shut the door then, and turned to the table, scrabbling through the debris until he unearthed a pewter cup. He poured a drink, quaffed half of it, and then—seeming belatedly to realize that she was still there—offered her the bottle with a vague “Eh?” of invitation.

She shook her head, wordless. A faint hope had sprung up in the back of her mind. He did have some faint streak of gallantry, or at least decency; he had come back to rescue her from the burning warehouse, and he had left her the stone for what he assumed to be his child. Now he had abandoned his advances, upon hearing that she was with child again. Perhaps he would let her go, then, particularly if she was of no immediate use to him.

“So … you don’t want me?” she said, edging her feet under her, ready to leap up and run, as soon as the door opened to admit her replacement. She hoped she could run; her knees were still trembling with reaction.

Bonnet glanced at her, surprised.

“I’ve split your quim once already, sweetheart,” he said, and grinned. “I recall the red hair—a lovely sight, sure—but it wasn’t so memorable an experience otherwise that I can’t be waitin’ to repeat it. Time enough, darlin’, time enough.” He chucked her negligently under the chin, and gulped more of his drink. “For now, though, LeRoi’s needing a bit of a gallop.”

“Why am I here?” she demanded.

Distracted, he pulled once more at the crotch of his breeches, quite unself-conscious of her presence.

“Here? Why, because a gentleman paid me to take ye to London-town, darlin’. Didn’t ye know?”

She felt as though someone had hit her in the stomach, and sat down on the bed, folding her arms protectively across her midsection.

“What gentleman? And for God’s sake—why?”

He considered for a moment, but evidently concluded that there was no reason not to tell her.

“A man named Forbes,” he said, and threw back the rest of his drink. “Know him, do you?”

“I most certainly do,” she said, amazement vying with fury. “That bloody bastard!” So they were Forbes’s men, the masked bandits that had stopped her and Josh, dragged them from their horses, and shoved them both into a sealed carriage, bumping over unseen roads for days on end, until they reached the coast, and then been pulled out, disheveled and reeking, and bundled aboard the ship.

“Where’s Joshua?” she asked abruptly. “The young black man who was with me?”

“Was there?” Bonnet looked quizzical. “If they brought him aboard, I imagine they’ve put him in the hold with the other cargo. A bonus, I suppose,” he added, and laughed.

Her fury at Forbes had been tinged with relief at finding out he was the motive behind her abduction; Forbes might be a low-down, sneaking scoundrel, but he wouldn’t be intending to murder her. That laugh of Stephen Bonnet’s, though, made a cold qualm run through her, and she felt suddenly light-headed.

“What do you mean, a bonus?”

Bonnet scratched his cheek, gooseberry eyes roaming over her in approval.

“Oh, well, then. Mr. Forbes only wanted ye out of the way, he said. Whatever did ye do to the man, darlin’? But he’s paid your fare already, and I’ve the impression that he’s no great interest in where ye end up.”

“Where I end up?” Her mouth had been dry; now saliva was pouring from her membranes, and she had to swallow repeatedly.

“Well, after all, darlin’, why bother takin’ ye all the way to London, where ye’d be of no particular use to anyone? Besides, it rains quite a bit in London; I’m sure ye wouldn’t like it.”

Before she could draw breath to ask any more questions, the door opened, and a young woman slid through, closing it behind her.

She was likely in her twenties, though with a missing molar that showed when she smiled. She was plump and plain-faced, brown-haired, and clean by local standards, though the scent of her sweat and waves of freshly applied cheap cologne wafted across the cabin, making Brianna want to throw up again.

“Hallo, Stephen,” the newcomer said, standing on tiptoe to kiss Bonnet’s cheek. “Give us a drink to be starting with, eh?”

Bonnet grabbed her, gave her a deep and lingering kiss, then let her go and reached for the bottle.