We must have dozed a little, for it was morning. The ship rocked gently, so the weather was calm. There was food for us—beans and salt meat with ale. It was brought by John Gregory. As on that previous occasion he had been given the task of guarding us.

“All’s well,” he said. “There is a fair wind and we are on course for England. The crew have had a double ration of rum for last night’s work. The Captain has promised them a share of his booty when we’re safe in the Hoe. He wishes to speak with Mistress Catharine when she has eaten.”

I was silent and in no mood for food. Roberto said he did not like the food, but I noticed Carlos and Jacko ate heartily. Edwina ate some beans and Jennet did justice to her share, but Honey could not eat. We drank a little of the ale, which tasted bitter, but at least it was cooling.

John Gregory conducted me to the Captain’s cabin.

Jake Pennlyon roared, “Come in,” when he knocked.

I stepped inside.

“Come and sit down,” said Jake Pennlyon.

I sat on the stool which was fixed to the deck. He said: “This is your second sea voyage. A little different from the first, eh?”

“The galleon was a finer ship,” I said.

He pursed his lips contemptuously. “I’d like to meet her. Then I could show you who is master.”

“She had an armament of eighty cannon. I doubt you could match that.”

“So we have become a sailor, since we sailed with the Dons! You’ll never see that one again.”

I shuddered. Once more I saw him clearly there on the floor, his blood mingling with the mosaic tiles.

“John Gregory told me you had been questioning him.”

“Do you expect silence from your captives?”

“Captives! Who speaks of captives. I have rescued you from God knows what. I am taking you home.”

I said: “Don Felipe Gonzáles was my husband.”

The color flooded his face.

“I know he got a Spanish brat on you.”

“We had a son,” I said.

“Married you!” he spat out. “That was no marriage.”

“Solemnized according to the rites of the church,” I went on.

“The Catholic Church. How could you sink so low!”

I laughed at him. “You are a very religious man, I know. You lead a life of piety. All your actions are those which one would expect of a holy man.”

“I am a man of tolerance. I am even ready to take my wife back even though she has played the whore with a filthy Don.”

“He was a man of fine and cultured manners such as you could never understand.”

He took me by the forearm and shook me; I thought at once of the gentle hands of Felipe.

“You were betrothed to me. That betrothal was binding. It was as good as marriage.”

“I did not regard it as such. If I had I would never have entered into it.”

“You lie. You wanted me. You would have been my wife, you would have been at Pennlyon Court had you not been sick of the sweat.”

“I never was sick of the sweat.”

He stared at me. Oh, I had deceived him completely then.

“It was a ruse. It was a way of keeping you off. Now, Jake Pennlyon, was I eager for you? When I kept to my bed for weeks to escape you?”

“You were suffering from the sweat. I saw your face.”

“A concoction … a paste, spread lightly over the face. Even you lost your lust when you saw that!”

“You … devil!” he said.

“In Tenerife they called me a witch and you call me a devil. In truth, all I am is a woman seeking to escape from a man she does not want.”

He was shaken. So he had not really believed in my reluctance, so great was his conceit.

He said at length: “I shall marry you when we reach Devon. In spite of everything I will honor my bond.”

“I will release you,” I promised him. “I will leave Devon and take my son with me to my mother. She will be happy to have us.”

“I have not risked much to bring you home for that. You will honor your promise and when you have a son of whom you can be proud you will forget that you so demeaned yourself as to go through a ceremony of marriage with a Spanish dog.”

“You are to blame for everything that happened,” I cried. “You with your lust and your cruelty and your wickedness. It was no ordinary raid which was made that night. It was for revenge because of what you had done to Don Felipe. You had ravished the innocent child he was to marry; you left your seed there. Carlos! Oh, yes, your eyes light at the sight of him. There is no doubt that he is your son. It is due to this and a proud Spaniard’s desire for revenge that I was taken as you took that girl. Because I was betrothed to you. Betrothed to you through blackmail. There never was a more unwilling partner in such a bond! So because of your wanton lust I was taken and submitted to similar treatment.”

He clenched his hands. I knew he was imagining me fighting with all my strength and finally being overcome.

“He was not like you,” I said. “He did not want violence. It was not lust for a woman but for revenge. You are responsible for everything. You … you … from the moment you came into my life you have destroyed my peace. Because of you this has happened to me.”

“You liked him. You agreed to marry him. Or was that for the child?”

“You would not understand this man. There could not be one less like you. He explained to me what was to happen. He did not come himself to get me and it was not until I reached the Hacienda that I was forced to submit. He offered me a choice. He did not wish to use violence. I was trapped. So I was passive. Then … he loved me and he married me … and life was not unpleasant.”

“So my wildcat was tamed … tamed by a dirty poxy Don.”

I turned away. As always I was, to my fury, excited by the presence of Jake Pennlyon. I felt alive now as I had not since I left England. I was actually enjoying the battle with him and I was disgusted with myself—particularly that this could happen so soon after Felipe’s death.

He sensed this, I know. For suddenly he had me pinioned; he held me against him.

He kissed me then and I felt an excitement which Felipe had never aroused in me.

He said: “I’ll not let the fact that you were a Spaniard’s whore stop our marriage.”

“Dare say that again.”

“Spaniard’s whore,” he said.

I lifted a hand to strike him, but he caught the hand by the wrist.

He bent me backward and again his mouth was on mine. He said: “Ah, Cat, ’tis good to have you back again. I was too kind to your Spaniard. I should have brought him back to the ship and had sport with him before I dispatched him to the torment of hell.”

I said, “I hate you when you speak of him. He was a good man.”

“We’ll forget him, for I have you back and to hold you thus and know that ’ere long you and I will be as one gives me such delight I have not known since you went away.”

When he said those words I felt a lifting of my spirits. I knew that I had missed him, that I had thought of him often, that although I hated him my hatred was in itself a fierce enjoyment. It was like coming out into keen fresh air after a long stay in prison. I was exultant, and I must be true to myself and admit that Jake Pennlyon had done that to me.

I knew that he would not allow me to escape him during the long voyage home. I knew he would force me to become his mistress within the next few days.

It was as inevitable as night following the day. Yet even as I mourned for Felipe I could not suppress a wild exultation.

For three days I held him off. I believe that was how he wanted it to be. He wanted to tease himself; to let me think I had a chance of winning in this battle, for battle it was. But it was inevitable that this would not go on. There he was in that floating world of which he was the indisputable master; he could have taken me at any time he wished. But he held off … just for three days.

He wanted to keep me in suspense. He enjoyed his verbal battles with me. Physically I was no match for him, but I was more than a match with my wits. I was trapped, of course. There was no way in which I could hide from him on his own ship.

For those three days the weather was ideal. There was enough wind to keep us on course. It was a wonderful sight to stand on deck and see those sails billowing out. Despite myself, I began to be proud of the Rampant Lion and admit that she had a quality which the stately galleon had lacked. The Lion was a faster vessel; she had less to carry; she was jaunty, confident; and I knew too that Jake Pennlyon was her master as the Captain had never been of his galleon. I guessed there would never be near mutiny on Jake Pennlyon’s Lion.

It was dusk. We had eaten and I came upon him in the alleyway near his cabin.

He barred my way and said: “Well met.”

“I am going to the children,” I told him.

“Nay,” he replied, “you are coming with me.”

He took my arm then and pulled me into his cabin.

The lantern swinging from the deck head gave a dim light.

“I have waited long enough for you,” he said. “Look, the wind is rising. It could mean stormy weather.”

“What has that to do with me?”

“Everything. You’re on the ship and the weather is of great concern to you. I could be occupied with my ship. I want time for dalliance with my woman.”

“I had thought you had begun to understand that I wished to be left alone.”

“You thought nothing of the sort.”

He pulled the comb from my hair so that it fell about my shoulders.

“That is how I fancy you,” he said.

I said: “If you are looking for someone on whom to satisfy your lust may I recommend you to the maid Jennet.”

“Who wants the substitute when the real thing is there for the taking?”

“If you imagine that I shall submit willingly … and eagerly … and that I am of a like mind to Jennet…”

“You lack the girl’s honesty. You suppress your desires, but you don’t deceive me into thinking they are not there.”

“It must be comforting I dare swear to have such a high conceit of yourself.”

“Enough of this,” he cried and at one stroke stripped my bodice from my shoulders.

I knew of course that the moment which I had resisted for so long had come. I was not the innocent girl I had been when I had first come to Devon. Already I had been taken in humiliation—for revenge not for lust—and later I had become accustomed to my life with Don Felipe. I had borne a child. Indeed I was no innocent.

But I fought as any nun might have fought for her virginity. I could not deny to myself that I experienced a wild exhilaration in the fight. My great concern was to keep my feelings from him. I was determined to resist for as long as I could as I knew the climax was foregone. He laughed. It was a battle which of course he won. I could not understand the wild pleasure that he gave me; it was something I had not experienced or imagined before. I was murmuring words of hatred and he of triumph; and why that should have given me greater satisfaction than I had ever experienced before I cannot say.

I broke free from him. He was lying on his pallet laughing at me.

“God’s Death!” he said. “You don’t disappoint me. I knew it was meant from the moment I clapped eyes on you.”

“I knew no such thing,” I said.

“But you do now.”

“I hate you,” I said.

“Hate away. It seems it makes a better union than love.”

“I wish I had never come to Devon.”

“You must learn to love your home.”

“I shall go back to the Abbey. As soon as I reach England.”

“What?” he said. “Carrying my son? You’ll not do that. I’m going to be gracious. I’m going to marry you, in spite of the fact that you’ve been a Spaniard’s whore and mine too.”

“You are despicable.”

“Is that why you can’t resist me?”

He was on his feet.

“No,” I cried.

“But yes, yes,” he said.

I fought him; but I knew that I could not resist. I wanted to stay; but I would not let him know it.

And so I stayed with him and it was late when I crept back to the cabin I shared with Honey.

She looked at me as I came in. “Oh, Catharine,” she whispered.

“He was determined,” I said. “I knew it would come sooner or later.”

“Are you all right?”

“Scratched, bruised. As one would expect after a fight with Jake Pennlyon.”

“My poor, poor Catharine! It’s the second time.”

“This was different,” I said.

“Catharine…”