Virgin Star by Jennifer Horsman Page A

wild and farfetched. She only half listened. Urgency mounted. She needed to get out of here. She had to escape.
    "Pardon me," she interrupted Butcher midsentence
    and looked at Seanessy. "I must be excused of necessity from your company. The water closet?"
    Seanessy considered her for a brief moment before he set his tea on the table with a light chuckle of amusement. "You're too polite—it's a dead giveaway, Shalyn. Gordon." He motioned the young man over. "Escort our sweet mystery lady to the guardlope." He had the habit of using the old-fashioned word for the privy. "Keep her at a distance and by all means shoot to maim if she so much as looks at you wrong. And, Shalyn darling, keep in mind all the medals young Gordon has won for his marksmanship."
    "Indeed? A celebrated marksman?" She pretended surprise.
    "As a matter of fact, there are only two better shots at this table, and not one man here couldn't hit a rabbit's ear at two hundred paces."
    Shalyn rose. "I see at last l am your prisoner."
    "For you own good."
    "Come along then," Gordon said, as he picked up Sean's pistol. He led the beautiful girl through the doors, careful to keep the cocked pistol raised.
    Seanessy was not the only man who watched the long gold braid swing to and fro across her back with each light and poised step. He had never felt such a damnable lure from a woman's backside ...
    He shook his head, as if to rid himself of a spell. "I knew she'd be trouble!"
    Yet he hadn't anticipated just how much.
    Within minutes a scream sounded as Tilly discovered young Gordon unconscious in the lower gallery. Seanessy was already cursing as they rose and raced into the hall.
    Once free of her guard, Shalyn had dashed through the front doors. She might have lost her memory and with it her past, but she had not lost her wits. Anticipating exactly what would happen, she did not make a run to the street and freedom, not now. She would wait until after they went through the gate looking for her. The one place they'd never find her was behind a search.
    Shalyn tore down the stairs and around the house. Breathing hard and fast, she ducked into the tall shrubbery and crouched down. She did not wait long.
    Within a minute came the sound of running boots through the open front doors. Seanessy's curses made her smile, the first she ever remembered, and it was sweet indeed. Butcher laughed, "Never thought I'd see the day when one of 'em runs from your greedy hands, Sean."
    "So much for gratitude." Seanessy sighed, and with hands on hips said, "She'll be headed for the docks. Give it your best shot, Butcher. That girl won't survive the day there. I daresay, I'll have little pleasure in collecting the shattered pieces. I'll be down at the ship within the hour myself to see our good fireworks—"
    He abruptly realized his billfold was missing.
    "Why, that little termagant lifted my billfold!"
    The deep sound of his laughter gave her a moment's pause before she heard a threat that raised the hairs on her neck and made her blush. A threat that involved baring a portion of her anatomy to the hot sting of his hand. She'd never see him again, she began telling herself over and over as she waited long minutes after the last of the men departed. Keeping to the cover of trees and shrubs, she rather calmly put herself through the iron gate and stepped onto the London street.
     
    Dark eyes searched the tall masts resting in the harbor, then traveled up to the gold sun sinking over the ubiquitous rooftops characterizing the decidedly ugly city of London. Only two ships remained. His gaze traveled up the long straight lines of the tall mast, the tallest in the harbor, and the only clipper. He read the name in large gold and black flowing letters: Wind Muse. Scorn marked his clean-shaven face as he thought that only an Englishman's flight of fancy could create that wholly imaginative name.
    Neither the man nor his two darker-skinned bodyguards noticed the magnificence of the proud