Pirate's Ransom

Chapter 18

How could she? He knew exactly how and Darius cursed. A woman like Isabella wasn't made for this kind of life. While she embraced the knowledge she was gaining, he couldn't help but wonder if she was only doing so to learn enough to drive one of her daggers into his spine. After all, he had taken her from her ill father and then refused to allow her to write to him. 

He wanted to stop caring. He needed to stop caring. She was a pawn, a pawn he was using to get what he needed to win the game. For a moment, on the deck he wondered if he could use her and get to keep her. She'd had fond memories of her time with him as a child, despite his torments. At first he'd pulled her hair and kicked her because he wanted her to run and tell her parents how mean he was so that they would not agree to the betrothal--fearing that Darius would grow to become a violent man. He supposed he had, he mused, though never to women. But after a week of her putting up with him and never once tattling, he did it to keep her attention at all times. He wanted to see her pretty eyes sparkle in irritation at him, because it was better than not seeing them at all. A fighter back then, she really hadn't changed all that much. 

He'd thought about telling her who he was. She'd be more apt to help him if she knew, but after she'd told him about her fond memories, he couldn't bring himself to sully that. Especially not after he'd seen the way her cheeks pinkened as she remembered their time together. Only in his wildest dreams could he have ever imagined he'd made such an impact on her. She was so alive and full of spirit he'd figured she had a thousand other friends that were more important than him. 

God, how she made his blood boil in his veins with a simple touch. Her skin, like a fine satin, had darkened from her original translucently pale complexion to a warm pinkish one. She had a constant color to her cheeks now, giving her a pretty glow. Hell, was the glow because she was happy? Could she really be happy on the ship? If she was, what kind of life did she live back home that she would forgo a comfortable feather bed, and pretty dresses for smelly men, and a raging ocean? Isabella was an enigma.

 The men had stopped heckling her and now treated her in a more familiar manner, as though she'd truly proven herself as one of them. Most pirates didn't do such things and it was very difficult to earn trust from men who were not supposed to be trusted. For a woman to step up and do what she'd done the night of the storm, was a truly astonishing thing. Throwing the flaming mast over the side didn't really knock it home for everyone. In truth, she could have jumped to the task to save herself since she would also end up drowning with the rest of them if their ship burnt into the ocean. It was her quick thinking and selfless act of risking herself to save one of them that really grabbed their attention. With all the commotion on the ship, if she hadn't tried to rescue Charlie, no one else probably would have. Hell, he wouldn't have. Not because the boy meant nothing to him, no...the boy would have been a great loss and he would've mourned him. It was because he didn't think he would have ever been able to save him. Once a man went off a ship in a storm, the black waters of the sea would generally claim them before anyone could even think to grab a rope. 

Isabella had kept herself busy the rest of the week. Helping with this or that, getting lessons on all things pirate. The only thing she hadn't adopted was their penchant for bad English and poor hygeine. Frankly, those were the two things he'd refused to give up as well. Despite her busyness, he knew she was trying to avoid him. That was fine, he needed to keep his distance from her lest he throw her over his shoulder, carry her to his room, and make love to her. God, did he want to.

Darius paced his room. The sea breeze flowing through the cabin, clearing the air of the sometimes musty smell of the ship. It was the little things that Isabella did that really made all the difference. Every morning she would open up the windows in his--their--room before finding a dead fly to feed to her cricket on the windowsill. Once during that week, she'd washed their linens in a bucket of water, and hung them to dry in the room. He'd caught her doing it and demanded she stop, but the stubborn woman claimed that if he was going to wash himself, which he did, there was no reason she not wash his clothes and linens along with her own. There was no way of stopping his smile on the night he'd seen her shaking out their freshly dried linens on the top deck. He knew she shook them to get the salt from them and that it would be one heck of a task, but that night, after she'd fallen asleep, he'd ventured into the room and stripped. When he slid beneath the sheets he couldn't believe how soft they were and they smelled just like the fresh ocean air.