Rosamond covered her face in shame.

Her cheeks were still hot. Nipples hard. Between her thighs tingled, and the phantom weight of Tierney’s hard body continued to press and rub on hers.

Although the rumors at court were not about her, they might as well have been. She was a wicked, wanton. A harlot.

Fearing for her life one minute and leaping into the arms of a Highlander the next. A traitor to her family, her country. A few more minutes and she’d have been forever ruined. Blast it all, she was probably considered that now. His mouth, so hot and wet had branded her skin. And she wanted more. Wanted to quench the awareness pulsing within her.

She sat up, tucking her legs against her chest and wrapping her arms around. Oh, how she’d kissed him with such fervor. Abandon. How she’d wanted him to ruin her. Take her to the heights of pleasure each new caress brought.

Was this why Loretta had allowed Lancaster to touch her, ruin her? Because it felt so good. And with it, her chest had swelled. Emotions had swirled. A longing for connection. A bond she’d felt with this man since she’d let him smother the flames from her gown and stared into those deep, dark eyes. A common soul.

A heart-throbbing kiss.

Heat flared anew.

The image of her father’s face loomed in the space before her. The angry fire in his eyes, the red-mottled cheeks so filled with fury. Shame. For now, she truly had made herself into what he’d accused her of. A wicked woman willing to give up everything for the touch of a man. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She didn’t have anything to give up. Nothing save her virtue, and what was such truly worth anyway since her father had already stripped it from her, even if under false pretenses?

She leapt from the bed and ran to the porthole, staring out into the blackness of the night. Golden stars blanketed the sky. There was no sight of the ships, just vast planes of rolling black sea. The sounds of the battle had echoed in her ears before. Had disappeared sometime while she’d been kissing and touching Tierney. The hardness of his back. The coil of his powerful arms. The strong tension of his jaw. Muscles had rippled beneath her fingertips. What strength. What power. What sensuality.

Rosamond had nearly drowned in the exotic sensations that flooded her.

Damn her, but she craved his heat, felt cold without it.

She shook her head, slapped her hands against the wooden wall and sucked deeply from the air of the porthole. Whatever illness had plagued her sister had now passed to her. Contagious it was. This heated wanting. Tierney had been filled with it. Awakened an insatiable lust inside her.

Focus. She had to get to Scotland. Away from her father. To disappear. Tierney had promised her protection, and for a fleeting moment when he’d kissed her she thought he might be her future, but now she knew that could never be.

He would have branded her a harlot by now. Chieftains, lairds, they did not marry women of loose morals. Oh, heaven help her… Tears struck her eyes. Tierney had been in London. He knew of her father. He would have heard the rumors. Assumed she was a harlot, willing to lay with any man. A lady bent on ruination. Is that why he’d kissed her? Because he’d assumed she would be ripe for the taking, and oh, how she’d proved him right.

Rosamond sank to the floor, shaking.

The look in his eyes when his mouth had descended on hers had been so conflicted. She’d almost thought it was real.

Just as in the cave, her future was still uncertain. At least now, she knew she would not die alone, starved to death high above the sea. Nay, she’d die alone on land. A foreign land, for certes as soon as they landed in Scotland, he, too, would abandon her.

Then a thought struck her. Mayhap, she should simply become what was already believed of her—offer to be his mistress.

She shook her head. That wouldn’t do. Not at all. She was not a harlot, nor any man’s mistress. What was one kiss… Or a dozen, if she were honest. A few light, or heavy touches. She was still an innocent, her maidenhead firmly intact, and she would stand up to anyone who dared postulate otherwise.

Rosamond wanted love. She wanted children. She wanted a husband who respected her.

Had all of those things been stripped from her the moment she decided to save her sister from ruin? While her father lamented such was the case, Rosamond refused to believe it. Prayed he didn’t already know about her past or, if he did, he wouldn’t care.

Stomach churning with anxiety, she crawled back to the bed, slipping beneath the coverlet and let the gentle rocking of the ship lull her to sleep.

She woke the next morning to a knock at the door.

“A moment please.” She hurried from bed, tossing on her ruined gown, and combing her fingers through her hair.

When she called through, it was only a swab, the oddest title she’d ever heard for it brought to mind a filthy, sopping rag, bringing her breakfast. She was disappointed that it wasn’t Tierney.

Without making eye contact, he set a tray on the table. “M’lady,” he mumbled, starting to back away from her quarters.

“Wait.” She approached the table, under pretense of checking the contents of the tray, all the while trying to form the words to ask what was really on her mind. “Laird MacDougall…” Why was this so hard?

“He’s up on deck, my lady. Did ye wish to speak with him?”

Lady Rosamond shook her head, then turned around. “Perhaps in a little bit. I but thought you might be able to answer a question for me.”

“I’ll try my best, m’lady.” The swab looked nervous, shifting from one foot to the other. His scraggly hair covered his eyes like a curtain, yet he didn’t try to shove it aside.

“Are you well acquainted with Laird MacDougall?”

“Only know what I’ve heard and seen.”

“And that is?” She leaned against the table, gazing through the hairy curtain in an attempt to make eye contact.

The swab cleared his throat. “The crew respects him, we all do. He’s a tough one, he is. And the men aboard, his men, they waited ten long years for him, loyal all the while.”

“And what of your captain?”

At this, his shifting feet appeared to do a little jig. “Acting captain or my true captain?”

Rosamond cocked her head and offered him a soft smile, hoping to ease his nerves. “I’m not sure I know the difference.”

“Well, Captain de Mowbray is acting captain, m’lady.”

Ah, Samuel de Mowbray, the English fellow. How odd this crew. There were English, Scottish and pirates aboard. “And your real captain?”

“Captain Lucifer, my lady. He’s been laid up with a wound to the leg, and while he heals, we’ve all been doing odd tasks, keeping the ship running, and now this job for our prince.”

“Prince?”

“Aye, the pirate prince.”

Pirates. Rosamond nodded, keeping her face outwardly steady while inside she was panicking just a wee bit. Was that the reason the pirate ship had let them be? Because they were in league together?

“Nothing to be scared of, m’lady. We’re not the baddies.”

“Baddies,” she whispered.

“And neither is Laird MacDougall. We’re just here to help him get back to his lands and to help his king.”

Seemed noble enough. And while the thought of pirates did put her in a little state of panic, she worked hard to breathe normally. She trusted MacDougall didn’t she? He’d not given her any cause not to. Even if he was in league with pirates. Indeed, it would seem she was safer with him than she was with her own father. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I fear I may have overstepped a might, m’lady, if ye wouldna mind keepin’ it between the two of us…”

“I shan’t say a word.”

The swab backed from the room, leaving her to herself.

Rosamond stared out the porthole at the calm morning sea, a complete contradiction to the tumultuous current inside her. All she could do was think about the kiss. How much she wanted him to kiss her again, and yet, knowing that to do so would be her total ruination.

A short time later, the swab returned, asking if she’d like to be escorted to the deck for some air, but Rosamond feigned a headache, deciding perhaps it was better for the remainder of this trip if she stay hidden below. Away from Tierney. Far away from the sensations he elicited. And legions away from any thoughts he might have garnered about her.

But how could she keep herself from going crazy in this tiny cabin?

Rosamond rummaged through the cabinets looking for anything, a book, a deck of cards, knucklebones, something to keep her occupied. But the one book she found was in a language she couldn’t decipher. Looked like Latin but it wasn’t. Perhaps it was French. And then she found a stack of parchment, and a box filled with charcoal sticks. Sketching supplies? There were no sketches within the box. Who could it have belonged to? Surely, they wouldn’t mind if she borrowed a few would they? She couldn’t believe her luck. Sketching had been one of her favorite pastimes during the winter months when the entire court seemed to be hibernating.

Rosamond took the supplies to the table, and stared down at the blank page. What should she draw? An image of sails came to her mind, and so she began to sketch the ship as it had looked when MacDougall had first rowed the skiff toward its mighty shape. The planked hull, the billowing sails, the rigging, and the men, and because she couldn’t help it, at the captain’s wheel, she sketched Tierney MacDougall, strong, powerful, determined as he steered the ship toward his homeland. She worked the charcoal over the parchment, getting in the formidable slants of his brow, the arching points of his cheeks, and the hard mouth that she knew could also be so provocative and tender.

Even in her reveries, her escape from the present with her sketches, the man was invading her thoughts. Her heart sped up as she gazed on the creation, the way his broad shoulders filled out the billowing shirt she’d drawn. Heaven help her, even as a charcoal manifestation the mighty Highlander made her weak in the knees.

Aye, it was certain, she was just like Loretta. It had only taken awhile longer for her shameful desires to take hold. Or perhaps they’d been with her all along, just waiting for the right man to unleash the wantonness from her prim and proper confines.

Well, she had to get her desires in check. Cool her blood. Remain chaste. But how? She could pray on it. But she was fairly certain that if Tierney MacDougall walked through the door while she was on her knees at prayer, his presence would have the power to still her tongue.

Well, besides keeping herself locked up in this chamber for the duration of the trip, there was not much more Rosamond could do. She’d just have to keep her distance from the Highlander. Stop asking questions of the swabs in regards to him. And cease sketching images of the man who plagued her.

If she was forced to take vows, like her sister had, then so be it, but for now, she simply needed to put miles between herself and England, and barred doors between her and the Highlander she lost all sense to.