She managed gently to disengage one hand. “Were not his health so delicate, I would surely be tempted to try such a tactic. But he is the Satrap, and lord of all Jamaillia. Such an important man must be kept healthy. Do not you agree?”

In reply, his free hand suddenly swooped around her waist. He pulled her close and bent to kiss her. She closed her eyes and held her breath. She tried to make her mouth move as if she welcomed this, but all she could imagine was how it would end. Suddenly he was the Chalcedean sailor, on one knee between her legs. She wrenched free of him, gasping, “No. Please, please, no!”

He stopped immediately. There was perhaps a trace of pity in his amusement. “I suspected as much. You’re a fine little actress. Were we both in Jamaillia, and I a free man and you unscarred, we might make much of you. But we are here, my dear, aboard the Motley. Such a crew as held you must have misused you. Was it very bad?”

She could not grasp that a man could ask her such a question. “I was threatened, but only threatened,” she managed to say. She looked away from him.

He did not believe her. “I will not force you. Never fear that. I have no need to force any woman. But I would not mind helping you unlearn your fear. Nor would I hurry you.” He reached out a hand and traced the line of her jaw. “Your demeanor and manners show that you were gently raised. But both of us are what life has made us. There is no going back to an innocent past. This may seem harsh advice, but it is given from my own experience. You are no longer your father’s virgin daughter saving herself for a well-negotiated marriage. That is gone. So, accept this new life wholeheartedly. Enjoy the pleasures and freedom it offers you in place of your old dreams of a proper marriage and a place in a staid society. Malta the Bingtown Trader’s daughter is gone. Become Malta of the Pirate Isles. You might find it a sweeter life than your old one.” His fingers moved lightly from the line of her jaw to the hollow of her throat.

She forced herself to stand quietly as she revealed her last weapon. “The cook told me that you have a wife and three children in Bull Creek. I fear folk would talk. Your wife might be hurt.”

“Folk always talk,” he assured her. His fingers toyed with her collar. “My wife pays no mind to it. She says it is the price she pays for having a handsome, clever husband. Put them from your mind, as I do. They have nothing to do with what happens on this ship.”

“Don’t they?” she asked him quietly. “And if your daughter was taken by Chalcedean slave raiders, would you approve the same advice for her? To become wholeheartedly what they made her? Would you tell her that her father would never accept her back because she was no longer his ‘virgin daughter’? Would it no longer matter to you how often she was taken, or by whom?” She lifted her chin.

“Damn you,” he cursed her, but with admiration. Frustration glittered in his eyes but he released her. She stepped back from him with relief. “I will get the names from the Satrap,” she offered him in compensation. “I will be sure he understands that his life depends on how much he can wring from his nobles. He sets great store on his own life. I am sure he will be generous with their coin.”

“He had better be.” Captain Red had recovered some of his aplomb. “To make up for how stingy you are with woman’s coin.”

Malta smiled at him, a genuine smile, and allowed a swagger to her walk as she left his chamber. “

Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - Trader for the Vestrit Family

A FIRE OF BEACH WOOD BURNED IN THE HEARTH, ALMOST WARMING THE emptied room. It would take time to drive the chill of winter from the big house. It had stood uninhabited for weeks; it was amazing how swiftly cold and disuse changed a house.

Housework was comforting. In cleaning and restoring a room, one could assert control. One could even pretend, briefly, that life could be tidied the same way. Keffria stood slowly, and dropped her scrubbing rag back into the bucket. There. She looked around her bedchamber as she massaged her aching hand. The walls had been wiped down with herb water and the floor scrubbed. The damp dust and musty smell were gone…. So was every trace of her former life here. When she had returned to her home, she had found that the bed she had shared with Kyle, their clothing chests and her wardrobe were gone. Drapes and hangings were missing, or slashed to ribbons. She had closed the door and put off worrying about it until the main areas of the house were habitable. Then she had come here alone to attack it. She had no idea how she would refurnish it. Other, deeper considerations had occupied her mind as she did the monotonous drudgery of scrubbing.