“Return the bottle to the case and leave now,” she said, “and I will pretend you have not tried to bribe me.”

His eyes again skipped between the door and her ring.

She extended her hand. “Give me the bottle,” she said in her most authoritative governess voice.

The sailor slipped his hand into his pocket and withdrew a slender blade.

Her throat caught.

He grabbed her wrist and pushed her to the wall. His body was wiry but he was tall and surprisingly strong.

“If you won’t trade, I’ll have both.” The blade gleamed close to her face.

“What foolishness is this?” she managed to utter, nerves spinning through her. His grip bruised her arm and his hand holding the dirk grappled at her shirtfront. He could cut her even without intending to. “We are at sea. Your crime will be discovered immediately.”

He yanked. The ribbon sliced into her neck. She threw her weight into her leg and thrust up her knee between his thighs.

He staggered back, gasping for breaths. He opened his fist and the ring winked like blood in his palm. She dodged for the door. Face twisted, he staggered toward her.

“THEY’RE DOING WHAT?” Luc squinted across the whitecaps. Sunlight glinted off dozens of white sails three hundred yards portside, casting the nearby naval vessel in a glorious glow.

“Standin’ about with the sheep, Cap’n.” Joshua chewed on a straw, his little thumbs hooked into his suspenders like a farmer.

Across the water Luc could not clearly see faces yet, but he knew well the cocky stance of the man posed proudly atop the quarterdeck of the ship opposite. Tony Masinter had been the best of first lieutenants and of friends. Luc could not have wished for a finer man to take his place as the master of the Victory. But why in Hades his old ship was bearing down on his new one now was anyone’s guess.

“Cap’n?” Joshua said.

Luc glanced at the deck of his brig. It was peculiarly spare of sailors, given the company that had appeared on the horizon an hour earlier. It wasn’t every day a hundred-twelve-gun naval frigate escorted a humble merchant ship into port. But it seemed as though Tony intended to do just that.

“Twenty of the men, you say?”

“P’raps more. But I’ve only got twenty fingers.” Joshua shrugged.

Luc turned his back on the other ship, leaned against the rail and folded his arms. “Why do you suppose the men are doing such an odd thing, Josh?”

“P’raps on account of the women’s flimsies hanging from the beams, sir.”

Luc stood up straight. “Women’s flimsies?”

“There’s one bit, Cap’n, ain’t nothin’ more than a scrap of nothin’, but it’s got them all castin’ wagers as to who gets it. That is, if she forgets to take it with her when we make port, you see.” The boy winked.

“I see. Thank you, Joshua.” He strode toward the companionway. He should send Miles to see to the matter. But he’d be damned if his crewmen and blasted steward would ogle her undergarments while he had to content himself with heated fantasies.

What in the devil had Miles been thinking to hang her clothing to dry in the livestock pen? Warmest location aboard, hell’s thunder.

Halfway to the hold he heard her scream.

Sailors’ heads came up around him.

“Orlop deck, sir,” one of them said.

He leaped down the stairs and bolted toward Stewart’s office, men in his wake. No time to load a pistol. He reached for his sword and slammed the infirmary door open.

With her back pressed to the wall and color flushed across her cheeks, she wielded a bone saw in one hand and a pewter jug in the other like a Valkyrie, with regal fearlessness. A yard away, the sailor pointed a dirk at her neck. His other fist was clutched tight, but between the awkward bones shone gold and red.

“I told you they would come.” Her voice was strong but compassionate, as though her pale throat were not inches from the lad’s blade. “You should have listened to me.”

He was one of the new men that Luc’s quartermaster had hired on at Plymouth. Barely old enough to raise a beard, now he stared at Luc with fear, the dirk shaking in his grip.

“He told me he’d pay me three guineas to do it,” came his raspy reply. “Three guineas.”

“Whoever he was that made you such a promise, boy,” Luc said, lifting his sword and stepping between them, “he’s left you to swing for it alone.”

The youth made no move to resist. The dirk fell to the floor with a clatter and he seemed to crumple in upon himself.

Luc gestured for one of his men at the door to take up the dirk, then he reached for the thief’s hand and pried the ring from the slack fingers. He nodded to his crewmen crowding the door. With a growling cheer, they burst into a volley of shouts, grabbed the thief and shoved him before them from the cabin.

Her eyes were wide, her face pale now. She lowered her arms. Luc took the saw and jug from her and set them on the examination table.

“He carries a bottle of arsenic in his coat,” she said.

“The men will find it. Are you—”

“I am well,” she interrupted him. Her throat constricted but her chin ticked up. “I am well.”

“You showed great bravery. Greater than many a man I’ve seen when threatened.”

“He was frightened. He did not want to do what he had agreed to do.” Her attention went to the ring in his hand.

He placed it upon her palm and she wrapped her fingers around it.

“I regret to have misled you, Miss Caulfield. He’s a new man aboard. I should have taken better care.”

“What will you do now? Will he be tried by a court when we reach port?”

“He has already been convicted. He will serve his sentence within minutes.”

Her eyes snapped to the door where the sounds of the cheering sailors had faded. “What sentence?”

“Theft aboard ship is a flogging offense.”

“Flogging?”

“Twenty-five lashes.”

“Twenty-five?” It would kill him. “Here? Immediately?”

He nodded.

“No. No, he mustn’t be beaten.”

Captain Andrew slid the sword into his belt. “The law is clear, Miss Caulfield.”

“You are the captain. Does that not make you the law on this ship, as you warned me? Spare him.” She stepped forward. “I beg of you.”

He looked down at her, his scrutiny intent now. “He has stolen from you. And you say he stole from Stewart as well. Why do you wish him spared?”

“I cannot be the cause of a man’s death.” The ring was meant for life, not death.

“Perhaps you won’t. Perhaps he will live.” The captain turned and left the cabin. She rushed after him. Ahead, the cheering of the crew on the main deck came down the stairway.

“He is starving,” she said behind him, gripping the stair rail. The sea spread out to all sides of the ship, brilliant in the sunlight. “Can you not see that?”

“Then he should have availed himself of the plentiful rations aboard this ship,” he said without turning to her.

She made herself release the rail and step out onto the open deck. “If he’s new aboard, how would he have known the rations would be plentiful?”

He halted and turned to her. The deck was crowded, her view of the frothy sea and the activity around the forward mast limited. What she could not see could not hurt her. Her limbs loosened uncontrollably. She felt dizzy.

“You are defending a thief, Miss Caulfield. A man who intended harm to you.”

“But the objects of theft are restored and he did not commit murder.” She clasped her hands together before her in supplication. “Captain, you must see reason.”

“Madam—”

“I cannot bear the burden of this man’s punishment upon my soul.”

“Then you should not have come aboard my ship with a possession worth stealing.”

He was not speaking only of the ring. He was speaking of her. She had put him off, told him not to touch her, and now he was making her pay for it.

It could not be. She could not be infatuated with a man who could be so cruel. But she had trusted in a man’s character and suffered for it before.