Devil's Mistress by Heather Graham Page B

times, as if the nights did not exist, and as if they had never been lovers.
    Often, in the late afternoon, he would escort her about the ship. Within days she had learned a great deal about the
Sea Hawk.
He brought her to the cargo holds and showed her where the guns were placed. She learned the names of the numerous sails, and she met the fifty-man crew one by one. They ranged in age from youths to graybeards, and just as widely in social standing. Younger sons from noble families sought their fortunes at sea, just as did the strapping sons of commoners.
    Some were rough and quarrelsome, some quiet and genteel; but they all seemed to share one common trait—an intense loyalty to Lord Sloan Treveryan. She knew that their respect for their captain kept them all cordial to her. Yet she often winced when they passed a group of the sailors, for she felt the gazes they raked over her form. They knew that she slept in the captain’s cabin—assumed her to be “his”—and perhaps envied him.
    Brianna had seen Sloan roar out orders with the severity of a fire-breathing dragon; she had also learned that service and valor were rewarded, that double portions of rum were doled out each time the crew brought the
Sea Hawk
through a storm or treacherous shoal.
    Although she came to know the ship and the men, it was all for show. The promise of escape was the hope that she clung to. Every day she plotted her escape; how to slip the lock should it be turned, which passages to take, where to dive from the ship to the sea, should that prove necessary.
    She awoke slowly one morning to realize that she was becoming accustomed to the sounds of the sea—the wind as it whistled through the rigging, the waves as they lapped and crashed against hull and bow. And as she closed her eyes once more to savor the gentle sounds of morning and close out the brilliance of the sunlight streaming into the cabin, she realized unhappily that she was also becoming accustomed to Sloan Treveryan.
    Although he was distant, as if his mind were far from her, their life aboard ship had assumed a certain domesticity. Boredom had taken its toll upon her, and bit by bit she had come to keep the cabin impeccably neat; she even mended his shirts. More often than not they shared their meals. And every night she waited for him. Waited to feel his heat as he slid his long form beside hers. He always smelled so cleanly of salt air and the sea, he exuded a masculine strength, and despite herself, she longed to curl against him, to be held, to touch him. It was agony to know that she must despise him and escape him—when she could not, inside herself, deny his allure. When she could not pretend that his arms were not those of a strong and fascinating man, that he was not arresting, that his eyes did not touch her all the way to her soul. And so she lay awake wretchedly, sometimes barely breathing, sometimes praying that he would shift and slip his arm around her, stroke her hair, edge closer to her—and then praying fervently that he would not.
    She could not deny to herself that she was falling beneath his spell. Perhaps, falling a little bit in love. Sometimes, she allowed herself to dream. To envision that he might marry her, love her, and cherish her.
    It was a sweet dream, a bitter dream. Yet it went on. She wondered if he could love her; and in that wondering, she could not help but think that he was a man to do what he chose to do, rather than follow convention.
    If he loved her, he would marry her.
    It was a dangerous fantasy. Very dangerous. Sloan Treveryan was a lord, and a man as fiercely independent as she longed to be. She urged herself strenuously away from dreams and fantasies, and set herself firmly to remember that she must maintain her distance from him—and escape him as soon as possible.
    Before she lost more of herself to him than she already had. Without malice he had taken her innocence. She grew ever more terrified that if she did not cling to