A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [587]
“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