He felt the quartermaster’s eyes on him.
“You are not incorrect. Which is why asking her to remain in my cabin is better for her,” Nathaniel said.
“Better for her?” There was a shade of incredulity in Hayes’s tone, and a challenge there, too. “Is it also better for her that she be sailed into the middle of a sea battle against the French?”
Unwanted images slipped in of Cassia being dragged from his ship, taken prisoner . . . Nathaniel growled as a vicious vise squeezed around his gut. “I haven’t ever lost a battle.” Was that reminder for him? Or Hayes? Ultimately, however, Nathaniel had never before had a young, innocent lady aboard his ship. Now he did.
His quartermaster proved tenacious. “But if you do?”
“What would you have me do?” he snapped. “Put an end to the mission? As it is, England is battling France for supremacy in the Adriatic. We are in a position where we can intercept their latest plans for the war and end this tug-of-war in that region.”
“I don’t . . . know the answer to that. We can leave her in a port . . . and then resume—”
“Leave her in a port?” he asked incredulously. “Drop an innocent English lady in an unfamiliar port—”
“Well, that has to be safer than sailing her into a match with the French.”
“It won’t be a match.” They were chasing the ship, which was unaware. “We have the element of surprise—”
“What about this existence at sea is predictable, Ellsby?” Hayes exploded.
Tension crackled and sizzled like the sea right before a battle. “I’ve never compromised a mission.” Nathaniel flexed his jaw. “And I don’t intend to do so now, all because a young woman confused my ship with someone else’s.” He layered an edge of finality in that pronouncement, one intended to put an end to Hayes’s challenge.
Hayes lowered his voice. “And when we return . . . there is the matter of fact that the lady will be ruined.”
“If it’s discovered she was in our company,” Nathaniel pointed out, placing a slight emphasis on that distinctly important word. “The crew will say nothing.” His was a confident avowal. “My men are loyal.” Were they not, they wouldn’t be with him. They’d proven their fealty and honor to him and this ship, and to one another, countless times.
Hayes winged a dark brow up. “But as you yourself pointed out, these aren’t all your men. Do you also trust the lady’s family servants will say nothing? That whispers won’t start the moment her family discovers where she’s been?”
And Cassia would tell them . . . something. The garrulous minx wouldn’t be able to keep herself to complete silence were she handed a rag and urged to wrap it about her mouth, all in the name of saving her life.
He firmed his mouth. “What her family’s faithless staff says or does not say is not my affair.” Except, even before that pronouncement had fully left his lips, an image slipped in of a Cassia who’d traded her trousers and shirt for a satin gown, walking amidst a ballroom, filled with ladies whispering behind their fans, while the gentlemen at their sides talked around their hands about her. His gut clenched again. “It is not my responsibility what happens after this,” he repeated in a different way, through tightly compressed teeth, unsure whether he sought to convince himself or Hayes.
Not for the first time since the other man had joined him, Hayes’s look turned disappointed and disapproving, and bloody hell, if Nathaniel didn’t feel that same shame somewhere deep inside.
“Given all of that,” the other man said quietly, “you might attempt to be a bit more kind toward her.”
“I am kind,” Nathaniel protested.
“You were deuced rude earlier in your cabin.” At Hayes’s look, he felt his neck go hot.
“I’m as kind as I am able,” he grudgingly conceded. “Now, are there any other topics you wish to cover about our passenger?”
Hayes inclined his head. “No, that is all.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
A smile ghosted the quartermaster’s mouth. “I know.”
Nathaniel, eager to end this discussion about Cassia with the other man, proved more of a coward than he’d ever believed himself to be, and with a brief word of good night, he headed for his cabin.
His cabin, where Cassia McQuoid remained.
Now it was surely safe, though.
He’d kept his distance for the whole of the day, joining his crew for dinner and having a tray sent ’round for the lady to enjoy by herself.
As he walked the familiar path he could make blindfolded and in his sleep, Nathaniel fished out his watch fob and consulted the timepiece there. Midnight.
Yea, the lady would definitely be asleep—likely for several hours now.
As such, it was perfectly fine to return, and to do so with the confidence that he didn’t have to face the temptation of having her awake.
“Captain,” Shorty greeted when he approached.
“Any problems from the lady?” he asked in hushed tones so as to not awaken the lady and put himself through more of that torturous wanting of her.
“Speaks to herself, she does.”
Well, that came as no surprise.
“Pretty inventive with her curses, she is, too. Knows some good sailing ones in there.”
There was a flash of appreciation and admiration in the seasoned sailor’s wizened face.
Shorty, too?
Nathaniel frowned.
Bloody hell. A mutiny, indeed.
“That’ll be all, Shorty,” he said tightly.
After Shorty had gone, Nathaniel removed the key from his pocket and let himself inside his rooms.
He pushed the door quietly shut behind him and locked it once more, and then turned.
His gaze immediately found her.
Not lying in his bed as she’d been prior nights, with the blankets pulled up over her ears.
Instead, she remained upright, seated on the side of the bed, wearing . . .
He swallowed hard.
Or he tried to.
Basic functions like swallowing and thinking and moving so much as a muscle proved impossible tasks.
Cassia wore a shirt.
And only a shirt.
She’d availed herself to one of his, and the giant, crisp-white garment dwarfed her slender frame and hung just above her knees, leaving on display her bared lower limbs, from her knobby knees to surprisingly muscled calves, and lower to her bare, graceful feet. His body heated as he imagined all manner of pleasures to be had with such legs wrapped tight around his waist.
Her hair hung in a tangle about her narrow hips, a gloriously messy waterfall of silken auburn locks that looked sleek still from the bath she’d taken . . . which only conjured fantasies of a different sort.
“All the garments I arrived with needed washing,” she explained, misunderstanding the reason for his study. “I see you looking at me,” she said archly. “And I know what you are thinking.”
She had no idea. Absolutely none.
For if she knew the manner of wicked thoughts he entertained about her—about them—she’d have bolted past him and tossed herself overboard and taken her chances with the sea.
Cassia sniffled, and Nathaniel recoiled. There wasn’t a greater slayer of desire than tears.