Stealing The Baroness

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

Tomas, teeth bared like an animal, scowled down at her. Rhiannon’s breathing caught at the look he fastened on her; this was a man who cared nothing for her, this was not one of her soft suitors. She had enraged him by her imprudent flight. He yanked her to her feet by her hair, then slapped her across the face with the back of his hand.

Rhiannon’s eyes watered and her ears rang; she tasted a metallic flavor on her lip. She touched it, and looked in astonishment at the blood on her fingertips. She had never been struck before. It hurt.

“You, my lady,” Tomas snarled savagely, his voice seeming far away as she fought to clear her head, “will behave yourself or I will give ye to my men. Dost understand?” He grabbed her by one arm, shook her hard. Her head snapped back, hurting her neck. “Do ye?”

“I understand,” she whispered, heartsick. What a fool she was. Not only was she childish enough to run away from home, but here she had gone and gotten herself captured by brigands. Her lip burned and felt ten sizes too large. She touched it with her tongue, winced at the sting. She wondered what it looked like.

“Good. I am glad we understand each other then.” Wilson and the man with the disgusting sore stepped forward, “Fetch the boat.”

Wilson and another moved down the beach a ways. Tomas pulled her against the hardness of his body, the smell of his manly sweat overpowering. Rhiannon choked, tried to avert her face, but he laughed at her attempts. His hand trailed down her arm, bruising her and brushing against the swell of her breast. She felt as if her n****e were on fire from his touch. His other hand grabbed her chin and forced her to look up into his pale, savage eyes again. “Ye think yer too good for the likes of me?” he muttered.

“Well, yes,” she imprudently answered. His grip tightened on her face, and the hand that had been playing innocuously with her arm suddenly gripped her breast, squeezing it as if it were no more than a head of lettuce. She yelped, but could not move. His fingers palpitated her, the pain worse than that in her lip. He suddenly released the soft flesh, glaring at her, reclaiming her arm.

“Ye see yourself only good enough for a prince, maybe a duke if he be rich enough. I know yer type. Well, look around, little noblegirl, because these men are going to be the only ones coming to call on ye for a long time. And if ye ain’t good to me, maybe they won’t be good to ye. Ye need a protector here, and maybe it should be Tomas.”

Rhiannon didn’t answer, knowing that he ached to hurt her, not wanting to give him any reason to further incite him. He laughed, and his breathing became ragged as he examined her exquisite face. “Yes,” he whispered, “what you needs is a man to teach ye how it is to be a woman.” His fingers tightened on her arm, and she inadvertently whimpered. The sound seemed to excite him, because he moved his hand from her face to her throat. “There are men who would pay me a fortune to put their collar on this throat. They won’t care if ye be a virgin then or not.” He moved his face closer to hers. “I think ye’ll be not.” He seemed about to kiss her, and Rhiannon steeled herself for the unwanted touch on her outraged mouth. The tip of his tongue appeared between his lips, hungrily, as if he sought a delicacy.

He was interrupted as Wilson approached, motioning to the other who was wading through the surf with a rickety-looking rowboat. Rhiannon looked out over the ocean and saw the ship moored offshore, and she gasped at the sight of it. It was a dark vessel with complicated rigging, and on deck men pointed her way, laughing and nudging each other.

She realized that they must have seen her walking about alone and stopped to investigate. She must have stood out against the cliff like a pomegranate in a bowl of lemons, with the red of her dress billowing through her cape. What an easy capture she had been! In all her imaginings, it was much more difficult to subdue her, and involved the soft caresses of handsome captors, not ones who looked and smelled like these four men, or who had the evil sexuality of Tomas. He frightened her, and she prayed to God to deliver her from his hands. No lightning bolt came from the sky, and she realized that there was nothing that she could do but submit.

Tomas pulled her hands in front of her and lashed them together with a length of rough rope handed to him by Wilson, then turned her to face him. Rhiannon met his gaze. His eyes were colored as the sea—liquid, cold, and merciless. He was as implacable as the sea, and as pitiless.

“Please,” she begged softly, “Please free me. My father will pay anything for my return. He is a favorite of the King’s,” she lied, hoping that mention of Henry would strike fear in the pirate. It didn’t. Tomas laughed at her.

“I wager he will pay—in fact, we plan on that.” He stroked her hair with one hand, smiling as she involuntarily shuddered and jerked away from him. “Although, I cannot see how a responsible father would let a gem like ye out of his sight. Ye must be a headstrong wench to venture out on your own. Or there is more to ye than meets the eye, and perhaps ye be nothing but a serving girl dressed in her mistress’ clothes.”

“I most certainly am not!” she protested hotly. “I am a baroness, my father is the Baron of Hearthwood, how dare you suggest otherwise ...” Her voice trailed off as she realized that in her outrage, she had provided him with just the information he sought. He grinned at her.

“Then it’s to your father we’ll go, and maybe not sell ye. Though ‘tis a pity to save ye for a Baron, and not for the likes of us.”

So she was to be held for ransom. Maybe her father could change her meager dowry into funds. Her suitors had all been attracted to her station and beauty rather than her father’s limited wealth. He would have few friends he could rely on to support him in raising money, as he tended to prefer the company of the merchant class, finding them less pretentious. She doubted these pirates would be sympathetic of her father’s monetary woes. What would they demand for her release? Surely more than her father could give. Tears burned in her eyes. Would she be their prisoner forever? Would she be sold at the threatened market, a slave girl to submit to the will of a Master, never having a say in her life? Such thoughts would make even Lord Bletchley a welcome alternative. Or perhaps, he was the sort of man who would purchase her.

There was no more time for such frightening thoughts. Tomas dragged her through the sucking surf, Wilson fast behind. The hem of her dress was soaked quickly, heavy, and she stumbled. She would have fallen if not for his rough grip. She was thankful for it, despite the pain.

They reached the boat, where the remaining men sat, laughing at her. “Get in, noblegirl,” Tomas mocked her, releasing his hold on her. She stood there in the water, head down.

“I can not,” she said, helplessly, her hands bound and her dress too heavy. The water was up to her thighs. There was no way that she could enter the boat without falling.

“Noblegirl too good to get into the boat herself,” Wilson sneered, vaulting in without disturbing the balance of the vessel.

“Noblegirl will get herself dunked if she don’t listen to me,” Tomas warned.

Tears forming in her eyes, Rhiannon placed her hands upon the edge of the rowboat. It tilted, and the men within yelled at her angrily. She stepped back, then tried to lift her injured foot over the edge. She managed to get it up, then the boat drifted away from under her, hurting her, and she had to hop to keep her balance. She would have fallen had Tomas not grabbed her. She looked up at him pleadingly.

“I see you need Tomas,” he murmured obscenely in her ear, his hands caressing her breasts, her stomach, and moving further down until she squealed in fright. He laughed, moving to her rear and clutching at the soft, round globes of her buttocks. She recalled the couple in the forest, and would have given anything to be back there, watching their expression of fondness and love. Anything but being here, the victim of this man’s hungry grasp.

He easily swept her off her feet and dumped her unceremoniously into the boat. He leapt in after her, one hand on the side but exerting no pressure on the vessel. It barely rocked. She marveled at the skill of these men, who knew the sea and boats so well. If only they weren’t pirates! If only they didn’t smell as they did! Sitting in the belly of the boat, water wetting her thighs and buttocks, she averted her face, trying to take in small breaths. So close to them, the stench was nauseating.

Seated behind her, Tomas yanked her up by her armpits to a seat, so that she was seated at the bow of the rowboat, facing away from the shoreline. The seat was wet and sandy, and very uncomfortable, though not as uncomfortable as sitting in the slop at the bottom of the boat. She bit her lip, and then winced as she inflamed the wound inflicted by this heinous man and his brutal hands.

Tomas grinned at her and then, to further add to the indignity of the situation, thrust a dirty handkerchief into her mouth lest she cry out. He sat behind her, his hands clasped around her slim waist and holding her hands to keep her from jumping overboard. As if she could swim with her hands tied, she thought furiously, hating all of her captors. Wilson and the fattest man rowed, the other two seated behind them. She felt their stares burning into her back. It was as if they had never seen a woman before. Perhaps they had never been this close to someone with a title. Ruffians.

“Do ya think the Captain will let us have a go at her?” one of the back men slobbered. Tomas shrugged.

“Depends on whether or not the Captain thinks she’s worth more a virgin. If it was up to me,” and his tongue wet his lips, “she would make our long nights sweeter.” He bent over, and ran the edge of his tongue along the inside of her ear. Rhiannon shuddered. The men in the boat laughed again, enjoying her discomfiture.

She sat with her back straight, trying not to taste the foul wadding in her mouth. Humiliated, outraged, she knew that she would approach this Captain and demand that he treat her as her status required. Surely he was a more reputable man than his filthy lackeys. She would also demand Tomas be whipped for his insolence. Even now, he lightly traced figures on the back of her hand, his face leaned forwards, touching hers, his eyes hooded and a sneer on his full lips.

She squirmed. His touch seemed to send fire through her body, centering mostly in her sinful area. Her breasts burned, as if the fabric of her dress rubbed them raw. She wished that he would stop touching her. She wriggled to ease the sensations between her legs, but it did no good. There was a pressure there that demanded some sort of release, that coursed through her legs and into her most private parts and up into her belly. What was happening to her, and why did this man’s wicked touch create such sensations?

He laughed then, as if he knew exactly what his fingers upon her flesh were doing to her. “Noblegirl is a juicy one,” he whispered lewdly, “I can smell you.”

At this outrageous comment, the men behind him burst anew into peals of laughter. Rhiannon blinked to keep the tears from falling. She would not cry before these men. She turned her head away from his, swallowing. She wished those sensations would stop and yet ... she felt that the thing that would ease them would be remarkable.

As they approached the vessel, Rhiannon could barely make out the faded paint of the name, The Night Hawk. What a terrible name, she thought. What a horrible, terrible name for a ship. And how apropos for a ship piloted by such villains. Only they would think to boast of their wicked, savage activities through the name of their vessel. Her thoughts of appealing to their Captain faded. He was no doubt the most scurrilous man on the vessel, evil and ugly and dark-souled.