The Captain allowed her to rest for the next day; for which small mercy Kitty was more profoundly grateful than she realised. He was busy overseeing repairs, so it was Tom who brought her bowls of broth and flagons of the rare and highly-prized clean water. His friendly face and solicitous manner perked Kitty up and by teatime she was feeling almost herself again, a little sore from the strain of the repeated vomiting but otherwise hale.
"How fares my little invalid?" asked the Captain, sitting at Kitty's bedside and taking her small hand in his considerably larger ones. They felt reassuring and protecting somehow, the long fingers wrapped around her and the thumbs lightly stroking the underside of her wrist in a way that made her flutter.
"I am...little improved, I fear," sighed Kitty plaintively, planning to feign illness for as long as possible in order to avoid the Captain's society. "I...feel so weak."
"Truly, Kitty? Tom tells me you were laughing and joking with him, and that you ate three bowls of broth one after the other a scant hour ago. One of you is telling me falsehoods."
Kitty pouted defeatedly. Why did Tom have to be so honest? He was meant to be a pirate, for pity's sake. "I suppose I do feel a little better," she sulked.
"Then you can join me at table while I take supper. Come, Kitty, out of bed now. And no more falsehoods. I can see I will have to be strict with you when you are my mistress."
"Excuse me! I am not your mistress!" Kitty drew the bedclothes up to her chin and regarded the Captain with stormy eyes.
"Indeed, not yet," said the Captain equably. "But soon. Come on. Up, or I'll have to carry you in there over my shoulder."
Kitty followed him into the cabin and lolled opposite him while he ate, her dejected stance amusing him.
"Worse things happen at sea," he teased her, draining his wineglass.
"I'm sure they are going to," she moped.
"Why so downcast, Kitty? Frowns ill-become that pretty face."
"Why so downcast? Surely it's obvious! My life is in ruins, that's why."
"I might take offence at that statement, were I the sensitive type. Fortunately for you, I am not. Your life is about to take a substantial turn for the better, Miss Tremayne. I mean to do you the honour of accepting you as my mistress."
Kitty tossed her head. "I don't want to be your mistress," she averred forcefully.
"Afraid it might scupper your prospects of making a brilliant marriage?" mocked Captain Prince, rising from his seat and pacing towards her with slow and deadly intent. "Concerned for your spotless reputation? Or just worried that you might...like it."
She tried to turn away from him as he drew level with her chair, but he caught both hands deftly and pulled her to her feet, flush against him.
"Is that it, Kitty?" he murmured, his voice pitched almost inaudibly low. "You don't want to admit to yourself that this is what you want; what you need. A man who can be master of you, and keep you satisfied in every way?"
Kitty made an inchoate noise in her throat. The pirate's inflaming words had hit their target unerringly, and now, coupled with his proximity and that damned irresistible leathery scent, she feared her legs might buckle beneath her.
"You think you want some perfumed popinjay who will bow and scrape and fall over his feet to attend to your every whim. But that is not what you need, Kitty. You need a firm hand. I can give you that. I can give you that and much, much more. You will be very well taken care of, I promise you. What do you say?"
Kitty was struggling to breathe. She longed to give in, to swoon into Prince's strong arms and devolve all responsibility for her life to him. It would be easy, so easy. But eighteen years of having her own way in all things had lain down certain well-worn pathways of strong will and pridefulness. She could feel the internal struggle almost as a physical fight, opposite forces pulling and pushing her hither and thither.
"Let me make your decision less painful," he whispered, and before Kitty knew it, he had a hand at her nape and he had swooped down on her unprepared lips. By the time he had eased her mouth open to drive in his exploring tongue, her lifelong adherence to the conviction of her supremacy had been banished; and by the time he had swept it around every crevice of that sweet cavity, and sucked the last drop of moisture from her chafed and swollen lips, all vestiges of indecision had been convincingly routed. She would be his. No question of it existed any longer.
A sighing surrender floated through her body, untying all the knots of tension, and she stepped forward, signalling that he could have her. His own body responded by signifying his possession of her, clutching her closer in to him and patting her bottom. He released her lips and chuckled into the delicate skin of her neck. "I knew you had hot blood in you, my girl," he growled. "Let's to bed."
*
Thrown down on to the mattress, Kitty looked up at her seducer tremulously, eyes reflecting a mixture of fear and desire. He knelt down beside the bed and took one of her hands, just as he had earlier, caressing it gently in a way that both calmed and stimulated her nerves. It was taking a superhuman effort of self-control for the Captain not to ravish her straightaway; having had her naked form parading before him for the last two days, he was more than ready to take full advantage of it.
He did not want to frighten her, though; at least, not yet. "What do you understand of my intentions for this night, Kitty?" he asked softly, having to look away from her rosily erect nipples with some force.