Still, she’d practiced because her cousin had proven a kiss could come at the most unexpected of times, and Cassia hadn’t wanted to be caught with her mouth open and her lips clueless as to what to do when it had.
Cassia opened her eyes and pressed her back against the door, borrowing support from the solid structure behind her, and she released a long sigh.
Sighing had always made her feel better.
A swift inhale and exhale.
Even a slow one.
This time, neither helped.
Her gaze slid to the bath he’d arranged; steam poured off the surface, and she wandered over to the serviceable brown furnishing, perfect for a man of Nathan’s sheer size and breadth. Just like his having cared for her himself when he could have sent the ship’s doctor early on, or reading to her or procuring her a bath, and now . . . entrusting her with a key to his cabin. He’d not locked her in but laid the key in her hand and trusted her to do that herself. Granted, he’d hammered home the point, but that was neither here nor there.
She sailed onto her knees and rested her arms along the narrow edge.
Her rumpled reflection stared mockingly back, and she assessed her visage.
Since she’d been presented before the Queen and officially made her debut before Polite Society, Cassia hadn’t known the interest of so much as a single suitor. It had left her with a good deal of time to ponder . . . why.
She didn’t possess the soft golden ringlets favored by the ton, but neither had she thought her auburn curls were so revolting as to dissuade all potential suitors. She was neither short nor tall . . . just somewhere stuck in between. She didn’t have the bookish knowledge and clever skills of her younger sister Myrtle. Cassia was fine enough on the pianoforte, never stumbling awkwardly through recitals, but also not in possession of the fluidity and dexterity of the Bell sisters, whose performances people not only looked forward to attending—a rarity for London Seasons—but also clamored for an invitation to. Her eyes slid over to the burlap bag Nathan had set out beside the door that contained the items she’d taken with her when she’d run away, including her sketch pad and charcoals.
My art, Cassia thought as she shucked her garments and climbed into the bath.
Now, that had been the one area where she’d had some competence. Oh, she’d never be called an artist, per se, but she was skilled enough. Even so, it hadn’t been as though a lady could walk about London ballrooms and attend dinner parties with a sketch pad in hand and turn that work around and display the one talent she did have to the world.
The one time she’d been permitted to paint outside her family’s home was aboard this ship, and look at the disdain that had met her skills. Granted, she understood why. This was a ship, not a parlor. There was no place for art here. Just as it so often seemed there was no place in this world where she fit.
Tears blurred her eyes, and she blinked furiously to keep them from falling. She hated herself for this self-pity, and hated even more that she was hopeless to stop.
But mayhap that was what it came down to. Mayhap it wasn’t that Cassia wasn’t beautiful. Rather, it was that she was, in fact, unremarkable. She was no grand beauty, no virtuoso, no cleverest of ladies. She was something remarkably worse—average.
And the world never, ever noticed a person who was mediocre in every way, from looks on down to skills possessed.
“Nay, Nathan noticed you,” she whispered miserably. “He noticed that he does not want to kiss you again.” Sticking her tongue out at her reflected self, Cassia flicked her middle finger, swatting the water and sending droplets sailing and then falling back to the bath like so many raindrops falling from the sky.
And she shouldn’t care that the entirely too-surly, brooding captain, who looked more like a pirate than a sailor, found her kiss too unbearable to wish to repeat.
And yet, she knew she lied to herself.
She liked him.
She liked his blunt directness and that he didn’t speak to her in the grating manner most men—including, sometimes, her brothers—often spoke to women. Treating them as though they were a breed of creatures different from humans. She liked that he employed men and boys of all different stations and backgrounds, and that he wasn’t so arrogant and small-minded as most members of the ton, who shunned anyone born outside their vaunted stations.
And she wanted him to like her in return.
Cassia drew her knees up to her chest and folded her arms around those limbs; her movements sent the tub water sloshing, rocking back and forth precariously at the edges.
The sooner this journey ended, the better off she would be . . . so that she could be far away from Nathan and these feelings he inspired—that she had no desire to feel for him.
Chapter 11
Later that night, his arms clasped behind his back, Nathaniel restlessly prowled the main deck of his ship, his legs, long accustomed to the motions of the ship, moving in perfect time to the vessel’s gentle up-and-down sway.
The rush of the ocean waves slapped against the front and sides of the Flying Dragon as it sluiced through the calmer waters. The nearly full moon, unimpeded by clouds and joined only by a skyful of stars, left a luminescent glow upon the sea, that orb casting a bright light over the deck.
Nothing had the power to calm as the ocean waters did.
The powerful aroma of the salt-laden air, crisp and clean and so unlike the suffocating, heavy fog that hung over the crowded streets of London, had the power to fill a man’s lungs and drive out the darkness. It cleared a man’s head, and never failed to calm.
Or he’d believed that was the case.
Since Nathaniel had taken his leave of Cassia earlier that afternoon, nothing had been right.
In his head.
He’d been distracted, his thoughts locked firmly on her.
A minx of a woman with a tart tongue and a penchant for both prattling and crying, but who, by donning a disguise and setting out on her own to sail the seas, had proven herself brave and bold in ways that most grown men were not. Yes, he’d say it was dangerous and ill thought out, but only because he knew the perils for a woman aboard a ship. But Cassia hadn’t just railed at a world where women were expected to grace ballrooms and parlors; she’d taken control of her life and set out to explore. And his appreciation of her, and her spirit, seemed even more dangerous than their embrace.
Nathaniel briefly closed his eyes.
He’d kissed her.
Nay, he’d not just kissed her. He’d bloody consumed her.
He’d made love to her mouth and traced every curve of her gently rounded body until he was driven nearly mad at the thought of ripping those garments from her and feeling that supple flesh, bared, under his naked palms.
She’d be satiny softness all over, and heat inside. And tight. Kissing as she had, timid at first and then unrestrained in her passion, there was no doubting Cassia McQuoid was innocent in all the ways there were for a woman to be innocent.
It was why he’d raced from her rooms and never looked back, even when his shift had ended. And it was why he’d avoided his quarters, even after Albion came to relieve him at the wheel.
And he’d been hopeless to focus at the wheel; even when the seas proved calming and steadying, he’d thought only of her sinking her supple body under those steaming waters, the heat of them leaving her skin flushed.