The Devil's Luck Ch. 01

They were moving backward now as Till's hold forced her to step with him the few paces to the sleeping birth at the rear of the cabin. The huge man at her back came to half-lean, half-perch at the edge of the raised bed, clutching her to his chest as her eyes darted frantically around the room, searching for any avenue of escape from her increasingly desperate circumstances.

The commanding officer of The Mourning Dove loomed again in front of her, filling her direct line of sight. With her options for retreat removed now by the firm grip of Mr Till, the captain bridged the gap between them with a final smooth step, his hand coming to rest loosely on her throat.

Hannah stiffened and felt the heat of a blush rise to her face as she took in the connotation of being trapped now against not one, but two firm male bodies. The warm press of muscle both in front of her and behind was startling in its intimacy, and she was quite sure that she had never felt the part of the prey animal during any embrace from her father or late husband as she most certainly did now.

"Captain," she began, her words shaking as she met his dark eyes, "I don't know what you think you're about, but this cannot be. My father is –"

"Your father is not here. But you are," the hand at her throat trailed up her neck to her neatly pinned hair as she flinched away from his touch.

This reaction only brought her more firmly against Mr Till, however, and she thought for a moment that she felt the subtle, meaningful press of something hard against her backside through the layers of her skirts. She steeled herself against the implication.

The captain's thumb was at her jaw, smoothing over her features the way one would handle a fine piece of porcelain. His hands moved to the wide-brimmed silk hat she wore and, finding its long pins, tugged them out, tossing pins and hat onto the berth behind them. He was looking directly into her eyes now with ominous intent, but spoke again to the crew member pinning her from behind as if she weren't there.

"Mr Till, can you tell me...does our fair passenger happen to smell as pretty as she looks?"

Hannah felt Till's face come down at the side of her throat and her heart raced as he inhaled, taking in her scent so he might answer his captain's question. There was a nearly imperceptible grinding of his hips against her, and the vague hint of his arousal she'd received before was now made ominously plain.

This was dangerous territory these two men were dragging her into, and her mind raced to find a way clear. There seemed to be none, for the moment.

"Aye, Sir, like a bit of springtime, she does," Till said, his voice lower still, mouth just behind her ear.

At his man's confirmation, the captain bent to the other side of her neck and drew in a breath of his own to sample her scent for himself.

"So she does, Mr Till," he spoke his agreement against her throat, his hands moving to cup her shoulders as he pressed her body even more tightly between them. "Very lovely indeed," the captain took license with his lips now, tilting his face to move them below her jaw.

The situation had moved beyond outrageous. A different man at each side of her, sniffing at her like hounds on the trail of a pheasant? The mouth of a man whose name she didn't yet know burning over her skin like that of a lover, while her maid waited alone in another dim cabin, oblivious to her lady's predicament? This was bloody nonsense!

She wanted to scream at the two of them and kick and lash out until she broke herself free of their insidious grasp, but the trembling height of her fear had her body frozen stiff and her tongue unable to form words.

Till still had an implacable hold of her arms that was beginning to grow painful. It didn't matter which direction she attempted to pull herself to escape the unwanted hands or lips or bodies: there was always another scandalous obstacle whichever way she squirmed to avoid their touch. Forward or back, left or right, she was met with smothering masculinity at every turn.

As if they moved in planned concert, the captain took over Till's grip on her right arm, freeing his man to cross his tattooed forearm over her collarbones, drawing her shoulders back against his chest. Hannah received an abrupt reminder that the large sailor at her back was shirtless as the skin above the neckline of her dress made direct contact with his.

This new press of bare flesh, small though it was, stirred a reaction in her that was entirely inappropriate, considering the circumstances. The feel of him against her upper back was the sort of thing that would normally wrinkle her nose. But despite the feel of the sweat cooling on his skin from the hard work he'd no doubt been engaged in before the captain pulled him into the cabin, a slow wave of warmth was rolling over her hips, and it found its insistent centre between her thighs.

Hannah remembered her body's anticipation building this way on her wedding night over eight years ago, when she stood before her husband clad only in her shift, only that day able to name herself Collingwood instead of Symes, anxious to learn the truth behind the giggles and whispers of her silly peers. That was before she came to know the reality of what her...services...to her late husband would consist of, and she'd been quietly disabused of any ideas of joy and pleasure in the act.

The captain dipped his right shoulder now, his free hand reaching down to gather at the fabric of her skirts and petticoats. When she saw his intent she broke from her trance of fear and unwanted arousal with a violent start and kicked at him desperately with her foot.

"No!" the cry tore loose from her throat, "Captain, you mustn't!" Her straining against the confining arms of Mr Till began again in earnest, but the man pulling the hem of her dress slowly over her knee was not dissuaded.

"Oh?" he asked her, the movement of his hands belying the innocence of his tone, "Mustn't what? Make a thorough inspection of some precious cargo?" He smirked as he gathered the bottom of her shift together with the rest of the many layers of fabric, drawing the lot higher still and exposing her thighs in a most improper way.

"I'm not bloody cargo, you perfect beast!" she hissed at him and brought her knee up in a reckless effort to ward him off with a blow to the groin.

He dodged her attempt easily and wedged a thigh between her legs, her skirts now bunched up above the place where she felt the cloth of his breeches against her bare thigh. Her chest was a battleground for her heart and lungs to see which could work the hardest.

"Look Mr Till, there's some fire in Mrs Collingwood yet," the captain declared with grin, bringing a rumbling chuckle from the man behind her, whose desire was now unquestionable as it pressed at her bottom.

"Let's see what coin you have brought to pay for your passage, my dear," he said as his fingers moved between them again, pushing their way up her thigh in their renewed quest.

Hannah squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the vision of her surroundings, wishing she was able to stop the passage of time itself so she wouldn't have to endure what she knew would come next. She could relieve herself of the sight of the grievous impropriety taking place, but her other senses betrayed her, filling her with an acute awareness of two sets of male hands on her, the sound of two men's deep breathing and her own blood rushing in her ears.

The inevitable came to pass and she felt the captain's fingertips brush against the centre of her treacherous ache. Hannah jerked at his intimate touch and tried in vain to angle her hips away, her pleas for him to stop falling on deaf ears. He was not content to merely pet her lightly, where she'd hoped he would be satisfied with her shame and leave off, but pushed his way further into her secrets, truly inspecting her as his earlier words had promised.

Her breath became ragged and the close confines of her stays did not give her room to fill her lungs as fast as her body needed air. She was beginning to feel faint. He probed a bit more, ignoring her whimpers of protest, and a wide smile broke over his otherwise stern face. His fingers stopped their lewd exploration and he drew his hand back out from under her skirt to hold it at eye level for the benefit of his conspirator.

"Mr Till, it appears that her purse is overflowing indeed," he insinuated as she opened her eyes to see his first two fingers glossy with her humiliating wetness.

Oh, Hannah, for shame!

"It is that, Captain," Till nodded appreciatively, his voice low and smooth with what she imagined to be barely contained lust. Despite her brief marriage, her experience with such things had been minimal, and the animal way these two men were pawing at her was quite removed from anything she was personally familiar with. Her body, however, seemed more than competent to the task, much to her horror.

Hannah tried to gather her courage, pinned as she was between Till and the lecherous captain and, in what she hoped was a steady voice, demanded of him, "What is your end, Sir? Surely you cannot hope to escape punishment once your actions against me are discovered! What sort of officer are you, to treat a passenger so? The crew of a respectable ship such as The Mourning Dove should have relieved you of command by now if they knew of your behaviour!"

The malefic grin she received from him in response to her tirade was not what she'd expected at all. His brown eyes glittered, holding her gaze as he cleaned his damp hand with the rumpled folds of her dress.

"You see that's where the source of your dilemma lies, Mrs Collingwood," he answered with a note of triumph, "I am not the captain of The Mourning Dove."

"What? Then who is?" the outrage flooded through her that there was a superior officer aboard who could have prevented this scandal from occurring in his own stateroom. But then she remembered that Till had addressed this man as Captain the whole time. Had he been in on the ruse?

"Oh, I am Captain, you may be sure of that, my pet. But this vessel you and your maid have boarded is most certainly not The Mourning Dove, and we carry no passengers, paying or otherwise," he flashed his teeth at her, reveling in her confusion before dropping the final blow.

"No, this isn't The Mourning Dove at all, Mrs Collingwood. You sail upon The Devil's Luck."

Hannah had been a very practical and even-tempered person her whole life, disdaining the hysterics of what she felt were the typical examples of her gender. With the impossible words that had just come out of the mouth of the man before her, who seemed to be upending her fate without a drop of effort, however, today seemed like a day in which she might finally get to practise that most feminine of arts and faint on the spot.

The contest her heart and lungs had waged came to a crashing halt as both simply stopped their work entirely at the crushing blow of this news. Hannah's mouth went dry and her insides knotted in terror as all hopes of extricating herself from this mire were utterly and irrevocably destroyed.