The Captain of All Pleasures (Sutherland Brothers #1)(42)
Author: Kresley Cole

“I’m bathing her wounds,” he answered.

“The hell you are! You’re needed by other crew members more than you are here, and my crew comes first.” At the doctor’s troubled look, he gruffly said, “I’ll do it.”

Bigsby nodded. “Please be quick about it. She needs to be dry and warm as soon as possible. Captain Sutherland, I am not exaggerating when I say it could be life or death if you don’t keep her warm. And you have to be gentle with her. Even if she’s unconscious, her body registers the pain. You mustn’t hurt her any more than she is.”

Before he left, he added, “Since I’m not certain if she has sustained internal injuries, she absolutely cannot be moved from that bed.”

Derek impatiently shoved the doctor out the door.

He turned back to his chore, grabbing a cloth out of the bucket of steaming water, and lifted it to her body. The task of caring for her proved to be punishing for him, because with every movement, she cried out in pain. Although he hated her for what she’d done, he couldn’t help flinching.

Her legs and her slightly jutting hipbones were bruised even blacker than her chest. He could clearly make out where the rope had wrapped around her tiny waist, damaging the delicate skin. The lump on her head hadn’t receded, and her skin was raw in several places. All in all, he’d never seen a woman in such bad shape. It scared the hell out of him.

He strove to treat her objectively but, brute that he was, he had to keep himself from imagining her skin and beautifully shaped body as they were the last time he’d enjoyed them. He was sweating when he finally finished washing the salt from her skin and wounds. He’d never tended a sick or injured person in his life, much less a sick or injured woman. He felt clumsy and inept every time he placed his rough hands on her small body.

After drying her, he looked in one of her trunks for something to dress her in, but wasn’t able to solve the conundrum that was her undergarments—scraps of lacy confections, too imaginative for him to figure out. Worse was the pleasure he found imagining her in all those silks and sheer materials; he was a guilty voyeur, an interloper.

Furious with himself, he stuffed everything back in the trunk and slammed the lid in frustration. He didn’t even bother with the second chest, but hastily dressed her in one of his own shirts before bundling her with every blanket he could lay hands on.

“Her bruises are worse,” he informed Bigsby later that night. “And she hasn’t awakened yet.”

“Captain, please allow me to say for the fifth time that I am fairly confident nothing is broken or permanently injured. And sleep is her body’s way of coping with the trauma of her injuries.”

Derek stalked off again. He trusted Bigsby. Hell, he’d let him examine her even though the thought of the doctor touching her infuriated him. But it hadn’t escaped Derek’s notice that every time he’d approached the doctor since they’d brought Nicole aboard, Bigsby would get this ridiculously knowing look. Sometimes he appeared to feel sorry for Derek.

Still, if Nicole showed no signs of improvement by tomorrow, he’d have to find her another doctor when they arrived at Cape Town. And a magistrate. Even as the thought arose, he dismissed it. He wouldn’t surrender her to Cape Town’s corrupt justice system, and not just because he could guess how a girl like her would be abused. It was, he told himself, because she was his to do with as he pleased now.

When he came back to his cabin, she was just turning in the bed. She shuddered from the small movement and began crying silently in her sleep. He wanted to kill—kill—the Irisher for letting her sail in these waters, much less for risking her life by pushing that ship in the Forties. And her crew had allowed her to steer in a gale. Because of their stupidity, she’d obviously struck the rocky shoals and gutted her father’s ship. If he hadn’t been in the area, they most likely wouldn’t have survived.

“Captain, you’re needed on deck right away!” Bigsby called from the door.

“What is it?” Derek snapped as he ran past the doctor.

“It would appear that her crew is taking the ship.”

At dawn, when Derek staggered back to his cabin in exhaustion, he found Bigsby at Nicole’s bedside. During the skirmish last night, the surgeon had evidently stayed behind with her. He didn’t like to think about that. He wanted to care for her as much as possible and see her through this.

So he could throttle her when she woke up.

“Is she all right?”

“Yes, Captain—”

“Out.”

Bigsby jumped from his seat. “Of course, Captain,” the man said as he turned to leave. “I believe she’ll wake up soon.”

When the door closed, Derek was at Nicole’s bedside. She appeared so slight, dressed as she was in one of his shirts without her cloak adding bulk to her slender form. He found himself willing her to awaken, and wondered why he was so apprehensive about her recovery. He didn’t want to examine his feelings toward her. If pressed, he’d say he wanted her to wake so he could begin his retribution.

Strangely, he knew that in the next few days he would drink more than he ate and sleep little.

That night after returning from his duties, he sat at his desk, drinking heavily, and again his eyes trailed to her sea chests, the chests that he’d heedlessly brought aboard. He’d had no idea if they held things women couldn’t live without, since he’d never packed for a woman or lived with one.

He surveyed them with a curious feeling of dread. They were just sitting there, those feminine sea chests. Directly beside his own. With a thread of something akin to panic, he understood that they were in his cabin and would stay there because, according to Bigsby, she couldn’t be moved.

When he’d first brought her aboard, he’d strung up a hammock in his cabin, but he could only imagine the night of fitful, interrupted sleep he’d get once he could finally lie down. Damn it, he wanted his own bunk back.

She’d be in agony if he accidentally jostled her in the night, but she was small and took up little room in his large bed. He’d all but convinced himself to join her. Instead he sat debating, drinking for hours. Until she began shivering.

It wasn’t cool in the room; the cabin boy constantly refilled the stove because of her. Yet there she lay, shaking more each minute. He could call for Bigsby. No, he decided, he’d take care of her himself. He stripped off his clothes, ready to sleep, and carefully slid in beside her to give her warmth.

But it made little difference. She was breathing deeply and mumbling, and he feared she’d developed a fever. Tentatively he inched closer to her and cautiously wrapped himself around her. She calmed and moved closer to him.

He felt a strange feeling of accomplishment. He’d made her shivering stop just by his presence and warmth. Unusual for him, he slept straight away.