“Weapons? Surely love is not a battle, monsieur.”
“Not if the players remain cool and reasonable—each understanding that passion is a fool’s game.”
“Is it? I hadn’t been told.”
“I suspect you have. You forget—I have met your mother, a woman who wages her marital campaigns as if they were great fleet actions with life or death at stake, which they are. Yet I doubt that love itself was ever the prize she sought. Not for herself, or for you.”
Electra blushed. This was true—not only had her first encounter with this man been in the drawing rooms of Paris, where he no doubt had heard every bit of gossip about her that could be had, he had also heard her admit that her mother would gladly surrender her to Judge Henri Le Cherche. “Your brother feels no love for me. I am merely an object to him, and surely he can find another one in the drawing rooms of Paris. He will not pursue.”
“My brother feels no love for anyone. That is irrelevant. And as for the things about you that might interest him, you combine a certain na?ve freshness with sensual boldness. You have no frilly mannerisms; there is none of the tiresome simpering and rouge so common among husband-hunters. And there is the natural grace, the almost feral ease, with which you carry yourself. You are lovely, Electra Gates. In some moments, like this one when you are a bit confused and a little angry, you are ravishing.”
“You are too forward, sir.” Electra looked directly at him, no turning aside, and he met her gaze completely and laughed, throwing his head back with the full-throated unselfconsciousness of a boy. Looking at that muscular neck, Electra felt her own throat close, her own skin heat.
“My dear, in this room, on this ship, I am the only one with the power to say what is forward or not. But you needn’t fear me. I am immune to you, even as I recognize your charms.”
“You are not … drawn to women?”
“I have spent more hours in women’s beds, my dear, than the most expert husband-hunter has spent in dress shops and balls. I am simply a pragmatist. I have seen what people call love and I am not interested in it.”
“If you expect to shock me, you will find yourself disappointed, sir.”
“I do not wish to shock. Merely to be clear about both my own position, and yours. If I know my brother, Henri, your resistance has inflamed and enraged him, and in such a state he can be dangerous. He has great wealth and influence, and he is perfectly at ease using them to get what he wants. If your story of his proposal and your rejection is true, you have made the mistake of doing one of the few things that could make him determined to find you—you defied him.”
“My story is true, sir.”
“Then we will be running out the guns for practice tonight because we need to be perfectly ready when he catches us. And he will catch us.”
“Knowing that he would pursue you, you still took me on board?”
“My brother and I have worked at aggressive cross-purposes our entire lives. His sexual habits and business practices are known in certain specialized circles, Miss Gates, and I abhor them and pity him. Helping you hurts him. That is sufficient satisfaction for me. Do you know how my brother made his fortune?”
Electra did not respond, not having the words for what she knew. She stayed as still as she could, attempting to betray none of her feelings, for this unbreachable, powerful, sad man across from her had stirred something in her and she wished to hide this from him—to reveal none of the tingling, alert channels opening in her body as she watched him lean back against a chest, a crystal wineglass in his hand and his liquid gray eyes still and clear upon her.
“His public persona as a judge provides cover for the actual source of his wealth—the very wealth with which he purchased his judgeship. My brother specializes in providing certain clients with sexual delights in the way of a diverse group of specially trained young boys, girls, and women who do what they are told. The ones who do not are sometimes disposed of in ways that amuse another very special subset of his clients.”
“Who would allow herself to be so used?”
“They are not asked, my dear. They are abducted and controlled. There are many ways to control another human being, and his network is made up of men who, like him, take physical delight in exercising those many ways. Once subordinated and diminished beyond the ability to be interesting, they are sold or leased out to the highest bidders. You would be shocked to learn who seeks his services.”
“Perhaps I would not be.”
He leaned forward, looking at her more closely. “Perhaps you would not. You are an interesting woman, Electra Gates.”
“Captain Le Cherche…” She stopped, unable to shape her question into words. He waited patiently, so quiet and attentively focused that she felt a flush of heat rise from the center of her body and spread. “There was a feeling I had when he stood in the room with me and told me he would take me as a wife. What he was feeling toward me at that moment…” She stopped again.
“Hatred?” Basil Le Cherche said mildly. She nodded. “Yes, Electra Gates. Your understanding of him was quite accurate. No wonder you interest him.”
“But he doesn’t even know me. Why would he feel hatred? And hating me, why would he propose marriage?”
“You inspired hatred because you attracted him beyond his ability to be indifferent to you. That is all that was necessary. Had I left you ashore he would have plucked you up in a matter of hours. And I am firmly against my brother’s habit of plucking things up.”
A call down from the masthead: five approaching ships. It took only a matter of minutes for Basil Le Cherche to leap up to the highest crosstree with a glass, to train it on the lead ship, and return to Electra. “Our time is come even before I expected,” he said, smiling faintly. “My brother approaches.”
NEAVE
How Be Your Best Begins