Still sniffling, trying bravely to stop, Toby pulled the plate toward him. On it were a chunk of rock-hard bread and a piece of maggot-infested beef that looked as though it had been dragged through the mud flats and smelled no better. His head bent, his greasy ginger hair clumping on his brow, the boy methodically began picking out the maggots, laying them in a squirming row on the deck beside him.

  "I'm gonna die here," he said, quietly.

  "Jeez, Toby, don't talk like that, you're scaring me."

  "They guard us more closely than they do the Frenchmen," the boy mumbled, turning the hardened lump of bread over and poking a broken nail into it to extract a wiggling maggot. "Why is that, Nathan?"

  "Because we're American, little brother. If you'll watch those Frenchies, you'll see they're content to spend their time gambling, gaming, and fighting; stay away from 'em, lest they suck you into their vices. But you don't see any of us Yanks wasting the contents of our purses on stuff like that, do you? Nay, we put our energy into tryin' to escape. That, Toby, is why the British guard us more closely."

  "I wish we could've got off when Connor did."

  "He'll be back for us, Toby. He won't desert us, I can promise you. But we'll have to be ready for him when the time comes."

  Toby was quiet for a long moment, thinking of their brave, likable cousin, who, even during the bone-chilling, brutal months of the English winter, had always found a way to make him laugh. It had been Connor who had showed him how to make friends with the rats; it had been Connor, grimacing, who had shut his eyes, held his nose, and choked down the weevily bread, joking as he did so about the "extra meat"; Connor who had paid a whopping forty-four shillings per month for the Statesman, just so they would have news of the outside world, Connor who had kept their spirits alive with stories about home. Connor had been the one to make them think about tomorrow, and Connor had been the one who, on those wretched nights of bitter cold and rotten herring for supper, reminded them that God had not forgotten them.

  Hard to believe, but then Connor had never led them astray.

  Toby cupped his hand around the squirming maggots and pushed them into a small pile. Once he had been unable to even touch the things. Now the sight of them no longer made him want to wretch, but he still couldn't eat the bread as long as they infested it. Connor. He loved his pragmatic, solid-tempered brother, but he missed his cousin. How bleak life had become since Connor had made his escape . . .

  Connor had been one of the lucky ones. One night a month ago, right before the new captain had taken over the hulk, a prisoner had managed to overpower a guard and leap overboard, musket fire following him down into the cold, black harbor. The following morning his body had been discovered on the mudflats, where he'd been caught by the tide and drowned. Connor and Nathan had tried to prevent Toby from seeing the fellow, but under the captain's orders Lieutenant Radley of the Royal Marines had marched all 460 prisoners up on deck and made them look at the poor fellow. Crows had been tearing at the dead flesh, and Toby had been violently sick over the rail. For two days the body had been allowed to lay there, until several angry and disgusted prisoners had petitioned the captain to be allowed ashore to bury their poor comrade.

  It was the last permission that captain had ever granted. Upon their return a mutiny had developed over the treatment of the dead man, and in the ensuing fracas the captain had been knifed in the back by one of the Frenchmen.

  Lord Morninghall, the new commander, had arrived to take over a week later.

  Toby idly moved the clump of wriggling maggots with his knife, training them into a large letter C. Five feet away a rat — this one christened Polly by Connor himself — lifted its nose, whiskers quivering as it crept toward Toby's neglected piece of meat.

  He looked up, watching it with disinterest. "The Black Wolf's gonna rescue us, ain't he?"

  "The Black Wolf won't stop until he's either caught or there's no one left on this hulk to rescue. Relight that wick, would you? The damned stench has snuffed it out again."

  With a trembling hand, Toby put down the knife and got the wick going once again. Then, drawing the filth-encrusted tatters of his yellow Transport Office clothes around his skeletal body, he huddled against the damp hull. His brother looked around at him in impatience.

  "Eat, Toby. For God's sake."

  "I can't. Not that."

  Nathan closed his eyes on a silent prayer. Above his head the deck cleaning suddenly stopped. His hand froze with it, so the sawing sounds would not betray him.

  "If Morninghall finds out about what you're doing, he's gonna put you in the Black Hole, Nathan," the boy murmured, watching with lifeless eyes as his older brother pushed his finger into the opening and dug out more sawdust. "You don't want to spend another ten days down there like you 'n' Connor did before, do you?"

  "Morninghall's not going to find out. Have you even seen him since he took over command of this thing? 'Tis Radley that I'm worried about, the infernal son of a bitch."

  Above, the scraping sounds started up again, accompanied by the sloshing of buckets of water being thrown across the deck. Nathan immediately turned his attention back to the hole.

  "I can get two fingers through here now, Toby. By the week's end, we ought to be able to grease ourselves up like pigs and slide right on through."

  "I'll never survive the swim, Nathan. You go."

  "I'm not going without you, and you damn well know it."

  "Then I'll wait until I'm stronger and I can make the swim, too."

  "You ain't gonna get any stronger if you don't eat."

  "I can't eat," the boy whispered, pitifully. "And so I guess I'll just have to wait for the Black Wolf to come and get me." He pressed his nose against his tattered sleeve to strain the foul air, and as one fat, hopeless tear ran down his cheek, he watched the rat as it made off with the meat.

  The maggots remained on the dark planking.

  No matter. By dark the rats would have found them, too.

  ~~~~

  The Black Wolf struck again that night.

  The following morning the papers were ablaze with the latest news, the headlines screaming out their message for all to see:

  PRISON SHIP SURREY RAIDED BY MASKED AVENGER! BLACK WOLF MAKES OFF WITH THREE MORE AMERICAN LAMBS! ROYAL NAVY IN DISGRACE! And so on and so forth, ad nauseam.

  The papers already tossed out the stern windows to educate the fish, Damon sat staring down at the Peterson's. It lay open to the appropriate section, headaches, and diagnosed Damon's as being anything from a brain tumor to an overload of life's stresses.

  It had to be the latter — of course.

  Didn't it?

  A very irate Admiral Bolton had already come and gone, nearly five hundred prisoners were cheering loud enough to split the very ship in two, Radley was outside yelling for order in the uproar, and through it all carpenters were hard at work, hammers banging as they patched up the hull compromised by the Wolf's actions, shouting back and forth as they fought to hear each other over the din. One of them had come in earlier to report another hole, already as big as a man's fist, this one several inches beneath the sentry's walk running around the hull just above the water-line. Radley had gone off to try to find the culprit, and as Damon had sat in his swivel chair, fingers pressed against his pounding temples, Radley had marched back in, a defiant American by the name of Nathan Ashton in tow, the enraged clamor of the prisoners beyond the door and on the decks below making hearing all but impossible. "Ten days Black Hole, Captain, he doesn't deserve any less!" Radley had thundered, to which Ashton had started hollering protests, Radley had begun yelling for fourteen days instead, and Damon had calmly rotated the chair around, shutting himself off from all of it until Radley had finally dragged the fellow back out, his enraged promises of eternal escape attempts still ringing in Damon's aching head.

  It was obvious how the escapees had got past the seven night sentries who continually paced the open-floored gallery. Five of the guards had lumps the size of hen's eggs on their heads, and the other two — liars who couldn't be trusted as far as one could hurl a brick — had no doubt been bribed by the prisoners themselves.

  The uproar continued outside. Damon hoped to hell that the nights' events, along with the punishment of Nathan Ashton, wouldn't bring a mutiny down on his head. Radley had told him all about what the prisoners had done to the last captain.

  Massaging his temples, he stared out the stern windows. There was a boat putting out from shore, and in it was Lady Gwyneth Evans Simms.

  His head began to pound even harder.

  Soon enough the commotion rose in pitch and he knew she was aboard. He calmly poured himself a glass of brandy and then swiveled the chair around to face the door, legs spread before him and his moody gaze directed on the unforgiving wood. Sure enough, there was a sharp rap.

  "Enter," he drawled, glass dangling negligently from his hand.

  Foyle showed the woman inside, then he fled.

  And Damon forgot his headache.

  Her hair was scraped up and back from her high cheekbones, plaited and wrapped atop her head with a pair of pearl-encrusted combs to anchor it. A hat of purple velvet, also sporting pearls and several plum-colored feathers, was perched neatly atop this elegant coiffure, giving her a smart look of militant efficiency. A pearl choker ringed her neck, her bodice showed off the swell of her breasts to maddening temptation, and pale lilac skirts shot through with silver thread only added to her regal hauteur. She had a parasol, and the way she was looking at him, he wondered if she were going to smash him over the head with it. But despite the picture she presented, he knew there was a passionate being beneath all the ice. He could see it in the flush that moved across her cheeks at his deliberately rude stare; he could see it in the sudden confusion and, yes, anger that darkened her violet eyes when he merely sat there, looking at her. At last he raised his glass in a mocking salute and smiled.

  "Ah, such passion you exhibit for your so-called causes, Lady Simms. One must wonder if that passion extends to the bedroom, as well."

  She reached into her reticule and withdrew a small pistol, pointing it dead center at his chest. His brows rose.

  "I'll have no more nonsense from you, Morninghall. What you did the other day was unforgivable."

  "My memory fails me," he murmured, eyes gleaming, though he knew very well what he had done and had only to look at her rosy lips, the tempting swell of her bosom, to experience that heady pleasure all over again.

  "Mine does not. Get up."

  He sipped his brandy, pointedly ignoring the pistol. "I must say, this is a surprise. I knew you were dangerous, but armed besides?"

  "I want a tour of this ship. Now."

  "Do you?" He waved the glass, not spilling a drop. "Well, I want command of a frigate, my abilities glowingly reported to my superiors, and an end to what has just become a throbbing headache. Now. But as I do not expect to have any of my wishes granted within the next several moments, I shall have to make do without them — and so, my dear vixen, shall you." He rose to his feet and slowly, deliberately, moved toward her, seizing her wrist and easily forcing the pistol toward the deckhead. Alarm flashed in her eyes, then anger. Holding her so, he leaned down into her face until her eyes were not three inches from his own and her nostrils flared with fear. "Do not threaten me, Lady Simms. I can promise you, you'll live to regret it."

  And then, to add to her humiliation, he let her go.

  For a moment she merely stood there, cheeks dark with anger, back stiff as a ramrod as she massaged her wrist and glared at him. He could see the pulse beating wildly at her throat, the venom and fire in her stare.

  She put the pistol back in her reticule and moved past him. She went straight to the chair he had just vacated and sat, her parasol stabbing into the decking before her as she leaned over it and fearlessly met his gaze.

  "You amaze me with your conceit and arrogance, my lord. Do you honestly think you have an effect on me? That you frighten me?"

  The glass dangling from his hand, he leaned negligently against the bedpost. "I do not frighten you, but you desire me."

  "Like I desire the devil, whose company, I must admit, would be immensely preferable to your own. But I did not come here to compare your devastating charm to that of Satan, the wealthiest London blade, nor even that of the Black Wolf. You flatter yourself if you think any woman would want you, especially me."

  His mouth went hard, and his eyes began to glitter. For the briefest of moments, he allowed humor to move across the irises, as though granting her points for the well-aimed hit; then, they became cold once more, the gaze of the dispassionate aristocrat. He stared flatly at her for a long, unpleasant moment; then he let his gaze move slowly down her face, her neck . . . her breasts.

  Gwyneth's heart began to pound. She regretted putting the pistol away, but there was no way to retrieve it without losing face.

  Morninghall remained staring at her, weight slung suggestively against the bedpost. Not moving. Just . . . looking.

  She met his stare, refusing to be intimidated.

  At last he straightened up and moved toward her. Gwyneth's stomach flipped over. He came right up to the chair, looking down at her with a malevolent little smile for a long, terrible moment. Then, his fingertips dragging across the polished wood of its arm, he moved with a sinister, stalking grace around the chair in what could only be a deliberate attempt to unnerve her. Gwyneth didn't move. He was behind her now, his fingers whispering over the top of the chair, just above her nape. She sat frozen. He came around the other side, still looking down at her, silently mocking her fear, before finally pausing right in front of her and putting both hands on either arm of the chair.

  He leaned down, trapping her where she sat, those diabolical eyes very, very close to her own.

  "A tour, you want."

  She stared fearlessly into those wicked depths. "Yes. I cannot see why that is so much to ask."

  His nose came closer. "I do not concern myself with the workings of this ship, nor what goes on outside that door. That's Foyle's job. Perhaps he will oblige you."

  "Perhaps he will. But I'd rather you escort me."

  He straightened up a little, that same terrifying smile still on his lips. She could feel the heat of him, the banked fury, and her feet longed to take flight. She dug them into the planking, anchoring herself by gripping the handle of her parasol.

  He noted her fear, and the smile became downright malicious. "And why is that?"

  "You said yourself that you do not concern yourself with the workings of this ship. Perhaps it is time you viewed firsthand, the horrors those imprisoned here are forced to endure."

  "I do not care what they are forced to endure. They made their beds, they shall lie in them."

  "You would condemn a man simply because he fought for another side and was unfortunate enough to end up in the gentle hands of the Royal Navy?"

  He leaned so close that she could feel his breath on her face, the heat that emanated from his powerful body. "I did not ask to be put in command of a prison ship. I do not like being in command of a prison ship. And I do not like you, Lady Simms. In fact, at the present moment, I cannot think of anything that appeals to me more —" he was so close that she could feel his brow just touching hers — "than the idea of tossing you down on that bed and having my way with you. Persist in annoying me, and you may well see a side of this beast you will wish you hadn't."

  The back of her head pressed against the chair. "Do you always resort to intimidation and empty threats to get what you want, Morninghall?"

  "I can assure you, my dear, that they are not empty. And I would be more than delighted to prove it."

  Malevolent eyes glittering with warning, he straightened up at last, the master of the moment, triumphant.

  "And I would be more than delighted to shoot you where you stand, should you even try," Gwyneth murmured weakly. He gave her a disdainful look, and she thanked God he couldn't hear the wild thumping of her heart. Her hand shaking, she reached into her reticule and extracted the tiny pistol, pretending to examine its fine finish before looking up at him. She smiled sweetly. "The tour, please."

  He merely stared at her. Not a nuance of emotion passed over that dispassionate face.

  She cocked the pistol, the faint click sounding very loud in the cabin, and pointed it at his chest. "Now."

  He sighed, turned his back on her in blatant disregard for the weapon in her hand, and moved to the door.

  "Very well then," he murmured, pushing it open. His smile was alive with malice. "Come along with me. But do leave the pistol here, my dear."

  "And why should I?"

  "Because I might otherwise have to use it on one of those poor wretches you seek to help when they turn on you."

  She stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending. Then her gaze dropped, and she slowly put the weapon down on the table. Her legs barely able to support her, she got to her feet, following his back and quelling the impulse to drive her parasol straight between those lordly shoulders.

  Chapter 6

  She had bested him, damn her to hell. She had not backed down, had not given in, and now here she was, walking along just behind him, triumphant, victorious, smug.

  Damon saw red.

  She wanted a tour, did she? She wanted to see firsthand what horror the prisoners had to endure? Oh, he'd show her all right. He'd show her just what a miserable command that bastard Bolton had given him; he'd show her sights that would make her hair curl, her skin turn green, and the sweat to pop out on her smooth and pristine brow.

  He strode out onto the quarterdeck, not bothering to shorten his stride so she could keep up. The deafening clamor made by several hundred bored and miserable wretches came to a slow, screeching stop at the sight of her. Someone gave a long, low whistle; another a mocking bow; and yet another hollered a taunt in broken English that she was going to get her fine gown as filthy as the grave. Then one of the Americans, on hands and knees as he scrubbed the deck, caught sight of Damon. Elbowing his mates, he pointed and began to call out insults. Damon kept his face coldly expressionless, determined to ignore the man and his chanting mates, knowing the humiliation was only going to get worse as they went below.