A heartless man couldn’t fall in love. But part of me hoped that a warm, squishy, sensitive organ beat beneath his cold veneer. If a heart was there, I could take it, turn it, and use it to escape.

But the logical part had already considered a third plan.

If I couldn’t reach the commodore’s heart, I could most definitely reach between his legs.

While I wasn’t skilled in fluttering demure eyelashes or wagging my hips like a coquette, I knew how to lace myself into a bosom-revealing gown and touch a man until his eyes crossed and his brain exploded.

A sweaty tumble beneath the blankets with Ashley Cutler wouldn’t convince him to free me. But if he believed I carried his babe in my womb, that would change everything.

He wouldn’t send me to the gallows.

Because he wouldn’t execute his own child.

Win his heart or conceive his baby.

For either of these plans to work, I needed to get close to him. Close enough to take his seed into my body.

As I stared at his beautifully sculpted back in the darkness, it shouldn’t have felt like such a hardship. He was a gorgeous man, and I’d done worse things to survive.

If I succeeded in bedding him, I would be betraying the husband who betrayed me. The thought made me sick because, God confound me, I still loved the king of libertines.

But if I did nothing, I would hang. I would die. It wasn’t the best option.

If Priest were here, I knew what he would say.

The crazy son of a bitch would tell me to lie, steal, cheat, maim, kill, or fuck whomever I needed to stay alive.

As I closed my eyes and drifted to sleep, I heard his growly Welsh accent in my ear.

Survive, my love. No matter what.

22

“Ow!” I yanked the needle from the pad of my finger and stuck the bleeding appendage in my mouth.

My frustration with sewing had been mounting all day, but I refrained from tossing the nearly finished garment off the balcony.

I’d woken this morning alone and hadn’t seen anyone except the young soldier who delivered my meals. Wherever Ashley spent his waking hours, it wasn’t here.

But he’d been ever-present in my mind.

As I measured, cut, and stitched in the chair at his tidy desk, I ruminated the art of intimacy. Touching, kissing, undressing, drawing him into my body… I imagined licentious scenarios in every combination of positions I’d seen performed in cities, gutters, and taverns.

Of course, I had my own experiences with Priest and others to draw on, but I was rusty. And after Priest’s betrayal, I lacked the confidence I once had.

Was I still desirable? If I were, would Priest have strayed?