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in a deep breath that felt riddled with needles. He straightened to his full height with only a slight wince.
    “Take her topside,” he said in a voice that sounded strange. He eyed the girl’s flushed face for a long moment while Turk rearranged his hold on her. Turk seemed absorbed in the task of using her pink satin dress sash as manacles, and did not glance at him. Kit had the distinct impression that it was more because of a desire to hide his laughter than the pain the shallow burn across his biceps was giving him.
    Kit turned away and, with only a slight limp, made his way to the upper deck.

Two
     
    “What did you do to him?” Emily whispered in a quivering voice.
    Angela slid her maid an assessing glance. Emily had wakened to utter hysteria, made worse by the pirates’ icy indifference. Only a growling threat to knock her out again had ended it. Now they were bound to the mainmast of the Scrutiny, hands tied behind them. Rough wood dug into her tender spine, and Angela shifted position in an effort to ease the discomfort. She gave a slight shake of her head that almost dislodged her hat.
    “I’m not certain. My cousin Tommy taught it to me when I was fifteen. He said if ever I was accosted, I was to kick him in a certain spot and the man would let me go. Apparently, Tommy was truthful for once.”
    Angela and Emily watched the proceedings aboard the captured vessel with terrified interest. Captain Turnower stood on the main deck in tense silence while pirates brought up cargo from the hold and plundered the officers’ cabins. Captain Saber supervised, occasionally flinging Angela a dark look that made her shiver.
    To her surprise, he was nothing like what she had imagined. After hearing all the stories, she’d envisioned a swarthy man with drooping mustache and unkempt beard, armed to the teeth and wearing extravagant, gaudy garments stained with previous meals. Though there were men like that swarming over the decks, the pirate captain was the antithesis of his crew.
    Not that he didn’t look savage enough, but it was a savagery along the lines of an ornate Spanish sword—beautiful and lethal. Beauty and violence combined in over six feet of lean muscle, dark hair, eyes as blue and piercing as a hot summer sun, and the fluid grace of a wild tiger. It was as breathtaking as it was terrifying.
    And just as disconcerting were the simple garments he wore. On any other man they would have been mundane, merely a covering. But on Kit Saber, the fitted black breeches and knee-high boots were an adornment, a showcase for supple muscle and long, lean legs. Angela found herself staring at him. It wasn’t that she’d never seen a handsome man before, because that certainly wasn’t the case. It was just that she’d never seen one so blatantly—well, male. He radiated masculine arrogance; it oozed from every pore, a great many of which were visible beneath a buttonless white shirt open to the waist and leaving bare a large expanse of tanned chest and flexing muscle. She swallowed heavily, confused by the conflicting emotions he produced in her. She should be outraged and terrified, not intrigued. No, it was not the sort of impression that gave her any comfort, and she tore her gaze away from him with a supreme effort of will.
    It had been a half hour at least since they’d been brought above deck, and the pirate captain’s anger had seemed to grow with each passing moment. She wished she could hear their occasional conversation. Only snatches of it could be heard at times, as the pirates were busy in the hold or on the other ship that was tethered to the Scrutiny by grappling hooks. She was very well aware, however, of the hungry glances she and Emily received from grinning pirates as they passed. None had spoken to them, but she had the distinct impression that if their captain gave the slightest signal, they would pounce on the two women like ravening wolves.
    Shivering, she looked away from a swarthy pirate