taking a missionary’s daughter, but I have no say in the matter. For god’s sake, even if I managed to get you in a boat and away from the ship, you’d die soon enough.’
‘All of you are evil! God, I hope you die too!’
Both of them froze at the groan from the bed. As if mesmerized, Jules watched Jameson Wilkes slowly sit up and gingerly rub his head.
4
‘Well, Bob, may I inquire as to the reason for your presence?’ Before Bob Gallen could reply – a difficult matter in any case, since he felt strangled with fear – Jameson Wilkes continued, ‘Ah, I see the problem. You look charming in my shirt, Juliana. Did you strike me?’
‘Yes,’ she said, her voice shrill with fear. ‘I only wish I’d killed you.’
Jameson Wilkes said nothing until the dizziness passed. ‘I underestimated you,’ he said more to himself than to her. ‘A mistake I shan’t make again. Bob, you may leave now. I believe my faculties are sufficiently intact once more.’
‘Sir, really,’ Bob Gallen said, but stopped abruptly at the deadly calm threat in his captain’s gray eyes.
He turned on his heel, not looking at Juliana again, and left the cabin, closing the door softly behind him.
Jameson Wilkes rose slowly from the bed. ‘Your modesty prohibited you from removing my trousers, my dear?’
Fear curdled in her stomach, but she knew she had nothing to lose. She would not cower before this evil man. She said with the best sneer she could manage, ‘After I got your shirt off, I saw how old and ugly you were. Do you think I would want to see more? You are repellent.’
Jameson Wilkes was forty-one years old. He didn’t consider himself either old or illformed. In fact, he prided himself on his body. He was lean, with none of the paunch at his middle that most men his age sported. At her words, he wanted to thrash her, but he controlled his impulse. He saw the fear in her expressive eyes, realized that her speech was all bravado, and reluctantly admired her for it. It had been years, he thought, since he’d thought of a woman as an individual, a being who was separate and distinct unto herself.
It was quite likely that the man who purchased her would be repellent. Probably fat, with sagging jowls. He allowed himself a few moments to feel regret, then quashed it.
He said in his usually calm voice, ‘Please remove my shirt, my dear.’
Jules clutched the fine lawn material to her chest. ‘No.’
He sighed. ‘If you do not remove the shirt this instant, I will call back my gallant first mate. He, I am certain, no matter what his chivalrous feelings toward you, will be pleased to see all your charms.’
Jules felt the pounding in her temples
– fear, outrage, determination. ‘I won’t,’ she said. Quickly she leaned down and picked up the ivory bookend. ‘You come near me and I will kill you.’
She didn’t stand a chance.1 of course. He was on her in an instant, bending her arm in an iron grasp until she dropped the bookend. He practically tore the shirt from her and threw her none too gently onto the floor.
‘You deserve to be beaten,’ he said as he pulled on his ripped shirt. ‘But I can’t mark you. There isn’t the time for you to heal. And no man would want to buy damaged goods.’
All bravado was gone, stripped away as surely as he had stripped away her only clothing. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed softly.
Jameson Wilkes frowned down at her. Her glorious hair was in wild curls about her face and shoulders. Her white back quivered as she cried. Never before had he dealt with a female like her. For a moment he stood quietly, indecision written clearly on his face. He didn’t want to break her, not completely, but he couldn’t allow her to be a wild thing, either. He didn’t doubt for a minute that she would never willingly allow herself to be raped by the man who would buy her. It would hurt his reputation badly were she to kill the as-yet-unknown man.