Heather Graham - [Camerons Saga - North American Woman 02] Read Online Free PDF Page B

acknowledged, dipping back, allowing her to regain her grip upon her sword.
    “Sir!” she said, and rallied.
    The dark-haired man holding Bess suddenly tossed her to another, stepping forward. “Captain, the lady’s at a disadvantage! Her skirts!”
    “Shed them!” the Silver Hawk ordered.
    Skye nearly screamed. The handsome young pirate raised his sword and it slashed through the air. She was not struck at all, but her cumbersome skirts and petticoats were sheared from her form, and she was left to fight with her hose and sheer shift protruding from the tattered remnants of her gown. Crimson flooded her face, but she raised her chin and did not gaze upon the humiliating exposure of her form. None of it could matter now. She could cling to her pride, for it was allshe had left, and if she could find courage, he could not take it from her.
    “Milady?”
    “Sir, as you have ordered, I am ready.”
    “I give you leave to attack, Lady …”
    “Kinsdale.”
    “Kinsdale!”
    She thought that he gave pause then, that she had startled him with her name, that he did, indeed, know it well. Whatever, his pause did seem to give her an advantage, and so she did attack, thrusting forward, seeking his heart.
    Deftly, quickly, he parried her thrusts. She feinted again, he parried. He backed to the balustrade and leaped up upon it. Caught up in the fray of battle, Skye followed him. He did not attack at all, she realized too late. He merely watched her with his eyes alive, silver gray like the day, like the color of his blade, like the mist of the tempest about them.
    A cry went up. Laughing, applauding, the pirates followed along behind them. There was no escape, Skye realized, but that didn’t seem to matter anymore. Her arm felt like lead; it was so tired, she thought that it might drop right off with the sword. Now each clang of steel seemed to echo and reverberate throughout her body. She shuddered with each thrust, and she kept driving faster and faster, seeking some vulnerability.
    The man had none.
    A dark and sleekly savage beast, he barely breathed hard as he caught and fended off her every thrust and parry. Surely, she seemed the wild one, for her cape was lost, her skirts torn and shredded, and her hair flew about her in disarray.
    He was deadly calm, a smile twisted into his features beneath the display of mustache and beard. His accent had been English, she thought, or was it? He was whipcord lean and hard-muscled, and the more she realized that she could not win, the more she became determined that she should do so.
    “Watch her now, Hawk, they say she knows how to threaten the right part of a man, or the wrong part, depending on a way of thinking.”
    “Can’t imagine the captain with a high voice!”
    “She’ll never touch him with steel!”
    “Never in a coon’s age!”
    “She’s desperate, Captain!”
    She was desperate, very. And so she was trying for desperate measures. She allowed her sword to drop, and when he stepped near, she sliced upward with all her strength, just missing the length of his thigh. He leaped back. Laughter rose. His eyes met hers, burning silver with the challenge, burning silver with stark warning.
    “Mam’selle, I begin to think that you are no lady,” he said, coming to the same conclusion as her previous opponent.
    “You, sir, are most certainly no gentle knight.”
    “Alas, I am a pirate.”
    “And I, sir, your victim. And therefore, I will fight you with any means at my disposal.”
    “Is that so?”
    “It is.” She had warned him. She swirled with her sword, slicing the air. And she was nearly victorious. With any other man, her thrust would have been lethal. She would have slit him cleanly from his groin to the gullet.
    But the Silver Hawk moved too quickly. He sensed her movement and responded to it, fighting with uncanny grace and strength, and it was a combination she feared that she could not match.
    “Eh, Captain, we warned you!” someone called