“I had not considered it,” she said.

“Apparently.” He seemed to watch her. “Did you return the children to their father?”

She stared. “Children?”

“In Plymouth. You do recall that you missed your ship’s departure on account of three urchin children. Do you not?”

“Of course I do.” She only found it remarkable that he did. “Don’t be foolish.”

A crease appeared in his scarred cheek, deepening the shadow across his face. “You have a remarkably agile tongue for one in dire need of assistance, Miss Caulfield.”

“Alas, servitude has not taught me meekness.” The open sea yawned at her back like a hole that would swallow her up if she were to lean outward only the slightest bit. “But when one is teased in the dark by a large man who has previously threatened one, one is foolish to behave as a servant.”

“Did I threaten you?”

“If I remind you of it, will you make good on the threat?”

He smiled slightly.

“Captain Andrew, are all your crewmen men of good character?” The youth’s lie to the doctor in the infirmary bothered her.

In the silvery darkness, his eye glittered. “Would you have cause to expect otherwise, madam?”

“I don’t know. I know nothing about the crew of this ship. Or of its master.”

He took a step nearer. “The members of my crew are all men of fine character, Miss Caulfield. The very best, given their lot.” His attention settled upon her mouth. “Considerably better character than mine, I suspect.”

She should not have come out. Her fear aside, she should not have allowed this encounter with him. From the moment at the tavern when he touched her, she had known.

She made herself look directly at his scar. She peered at the puckered slash, angry red against the tan of his skin, and the strip of cloth that covered his eye, and she waited for a shiver of revulsion. None came. His body, so close to hers, seemed to radiate strength and vitality at odds with the disoriented desire in his gaze upon her lips.

Arabella was no stranger to men’s lust. She knew far more about it than she wished. And she knew this man was no longer teasing.

Chapter 3

Brandy

“Will you have your way with me here on deck, Captain? Or can you wait long enough to first drag me by the hair to your cabin? Don’t tell me you are the sort of man to throw a woman over your shoulder.” Her bright eyes challenged, then shifted to run along Luc’s shoulders. “Though I suppose it would barely require an effort.”

It had rarely ever required any effort whatsoever on his part to win a lady’s favors. He was Lucien Andrew Rallis Westfall, decorated commander in His Majesty’s Royal Navy, master of an enviable ship, not to mention a pretty little property in France, and heartbeats away from an English dukedom. Women had begged him to bed them, and wed them.

“From governess to jade in a mere five days.” He forced his feet to remain where they were planted, his hands to remain at his sides. She held the hood of her cloak close about her cheeks. He wanted to see her entire face, to draw away the wool and linen and touch her perfect skin. For five days he had been dreaming of it.

He had avoided her for precisely that reason.

“I had not expected this of you, Miss Caulfield,” he said.

“Then you are indeed foolish, Captain.”

“I have challenged men for offering me less insult.”

“Will it be swords or pistols, then? I haven’t any skill with either, so you may as well choose your favorite.”

A thread of amusement wound through him, and sanity. But with the rain sparkling in her eyes and bathing her skin in ethereal shadows, she was too lovely for him to be content with sanity.

“A man might look without intending to touch,” he said.

“A man might lie through his teeth convincingly if he practices the art of it often enough.” She spoke without bravado, but with warmth and the clearest, sharpest tongue he had ever heard from a woman so young.

“Do you know . . .” He bent his head, hoping to catch her scent of roses and lavender on the breeze. “I have been combing my memory to recall who it is that you remind me of, and I have just come upon it.”

“You have?” The cornflowers widened in a moment of candid surprise.

“In my youth I saw the Duchess of Hammershire. She was an old termagant, sharp-tongued, with an air of sublime confidence and utter indifference to her effect upon others.”

Her lashes flicked up and down once. Her knuckles were white about the railing. His words disconcerted her. Good. The more unsteady he made her, the better. Then they would be on the same footing.

“I am not indifferent to my effect upon others,” she said.

He laughed, and her eyes went wide. “You admit to sharp-tongued and sublimely confident, do you, my little duchess?”

A shiver shook her. “I—I am not your little anything.”

He allowed his gaze to drop to her lips, not raspberry now, but blue. Her quivers were not from fear.

“You are chilled.”

Her chin jutted up. “It is my only recourse to putting you off. I am in your power, recall.” She shivered again.

“I didn’t say chilly. I said chilled. Has the rain soaked you through?”

“I—” Her body trembled beneath the sodden cloak. “That is none of your business.”

“Woman, I have no patience with fools. How long have you been atop?”

“I . . .” Her delicate brow creased, her teeth clicking together.

“Half an hour, Cap’n,” the cabin boy’s voice piped from close by. “Been standin’ there still as a statue gettin’ soaked through.”

“Thank you, Joshua. What are you doing atop at this time of night?”

“Watchin’ the lady, just like you told me to, Cap’n.”

The cornflowers shot Luc a confused glance. Blast the innocent ignorance of children.

“My grandpa took a chill afore he up and croaked in my grandma’s one good bed,” the boy said, and his little jaw dropped open. “Is Miss goin’ to croak too, Cap’n?”

“I don’t believe she would allow that, Josh.”

“You mustn’t—” Her words ended on a hard shudder.

“Joshua, find Dr. Stewart. Bid him attend me in my day cabin.”

“Aye aye, Cap’n.” The boy scampered off.

“Truly, Captain, I shan’t—”

“You shan’t say another word until I say you may.” His hand came around her elbow through the fabric of her cloak. His grip was strong and very tight. “Now do allow me to escort you below, madam.”

She resisted, then released the rail and allowed him to lead her toward the stairway.

Joshua met them at the bottom. “Took me a few to suss him out, Cap’n, this bein’ such a prodigiously grand ship, a’course. But the doc’s on his way now.”

“Excellent.” They passed through the sleeping sailors and came to the cabins. “The lady is in good hands now, Joshua,” he said in a gentle hush. “Off to bed with you.”

“But, Cap’n—”

“If you wish to stand with the helmsman again on the quarterdeck tomorrow and assist him in steering the ship, you will climb into your hammock and go immediately to sleep. No. Not another word from you. Go now.”

The boy hurried into the darkness of the deck.

“Now, little duchess, do follow me.” He opened the door to his cabin.

Another shudder grabbed her and Arabella’s teeth clacked. “Y-You call me d-duchess yet you speak with greater respect to Joshua,” she mumbled.

“He complimented my ship.”

“If I w-waxed eloquent on the prodigious size of y-your . . . ship would you s-speak to me with deference too?”