Cassia reached him and, dropping her hands on her hips, stared up at him with an impressively governess-like, stern stare. This, when she’d been all smiles and blushes for the navigator.
“Well?” she dared.
He firmed his jaw. “I assure you my navigator certainly does not require defense from you.”
“Were you yelling at him?”
“I do not yell.” Nathaniel didn’t need to rely on those outbursts, though in fairness, this minx challenged every last bit of restraint he’d prided himself on carrying. “To your station, Albion,” Nathaniel instructed through his clenched teeth, which, with this much gritting, he was destined to chip or lose on this latest voyage. Taking Cassia gently but also firmly by the arm, Nathaniel proceeded to guide her back to the spot he’d designated as hers.
“Why are you scowling at Lieutenant Albion?” she demanded as they went.
“I assure you, it is not your business.”
Halfway across the deck, and only halfway closer to depositing her in that spot on her own, Cassia dug her feet in so that Nathaniel was forced to either stop or continue on and drag her.
Bloody hell.
Nathaniel stopped. “What?”
“Was it because of me?” she asked doggedly, wholly unperturbed by his attempt to put a nail in the coffin of this conversation he decidedly did not wish to have.
“It is because he has other duties on this ship, and entertaining you is not one of them.” Nathaniel again reached for her arm, but she drew the slender limb back.
The lady danced away from him. “He was being polite.”
Nathaniel kept his features blank. “Well, given that, on future sailings, I’ll strip him of his responsibilities as navigator and put him in charge of the important task of schooling the crew on manners and decorum.”
Her brow scrunched up endearingly. “Surely that isn’t a role on a ship?” Her eyes lit. “But if it is—”
“No, Cassia.” He briefly closed his eyes. “It is not.”
She pursed her lips. “You’re being sarcastic again?”
“I’m being sarcastic again.”
“What is it with men and sarcasm?” she muttered to herself. “You. My brothers. My brother-in-law. Jeremy.” Jeremy, the soft, dough-faced boat owner she’d put him in a column with. My God, Nathaniel’s fall had been fast and ignoble. “Do you know how much time is wasted in discourse, simply having to sort out what a man truly means—”
“Cassia, I don’t doubt for a damned moment if I told you what I truly meant, it wouldn’t lead you in the same circles you manage to bring us whenever you talk.”
She inclined her head and smiled at him. “Why, thank you.”
And damned if that sunny smile on her full red lips didn’t leave him with a greater warmth than the bright morning sun beating down on them.
“Furthermore, I have a bone to pick with you.” Cassia’s expression instantly turned glowering.
“This I have to—”
“I am a McQuoid,” she whispered.
“Yes, I believe we’ve ascertained as—”
“As such, I cannot be a MacKay.”
The spitfire would challenge him . . . even in this? He closed his eyes and summoned a familiar sea ditty.
“In Amsterdam there lived a maid,
Mark well what I do say,
In Amsterdam there lived a maid,
And she was mistress of her—”
“Nathan.” She tugged at his sleeve. “Are you singing again? That is really a rude . . .” Her eyes went all soft. “Though also an endearingly adorable habit, I confess.”
His mind came to a screeching halt mid-verse.
Endearingly adorable?
His eyes flew open, and he schooled his features into a harsh mask meant to dissuade her from further nonsense and disabuse her of the notion that she had any say over setting the terms for her being above deck. “For the purpose of this trip, you are, in fact, a MacKay.”
Alas, he should have known better than to think he had a shot at schooling her.
“The MacKays are notorious thieves who’ve been raiding from the McQuoids as long as our families have inhabited the Highlands. First, they stole the bride of Laird Lachlan of the McQuoids, then continued to pillage. Their cattle. Their tartans. Even their hay.”
“Not their hay?” He kept a completely straight face . . . that also went completely undetected by her untried ears.
She gave her head an equally solemn nod. “Even their hay. As I said, I can’t be a MacKay,” she insisted. “Surely you see that now?”
“Well, not because of the bride-stealing or cattle-raiding, but the hay? The hay absolutely did it for me.”
Cassia opened her mouth, then frowned. “Sarcasm?”
He touched the brim of an imagined hat. “Indeed.”
She doffed her hat and used it to shield her eyes.
With a curse, he grabbed for the article to cover up that auburn braid of a thousand shades of red, but she held it out of his reach. “Cassia, you need to cover your—”
“Well, I’ll have you know”—her frown deepened as she masterfully interrupted and ignored him—“it wasn’t just the cattle. They also snatched the McQuoid clan’s pigs and—”
“Ehhhh.” Nathaniel raised his voice over hers, instantly clamping his hands over his ears.
Bloody hell.
Cassia stamped her foot. “What now?”
“You have to cover your hair.”
She drew back. “With a hat? Whyever would I do—”
“Because red hair is bad luck.”
Cassia scoffed. “That is nonsense.” She gave the locks in question a toss. “Furthermore, the shade is more auburn than red.”
“It’s the same thing,” he muttered. Tugging free her cap, he placed it gently but firmly atop her head. “And don’t mention that word on a ship,” he said tightly.
“Which one? ‘Hair’ or ‘hat’?”
“Cassia,” he warned.
The lady eyed him with suspicious eyes. “You’re funning me.”
“I assure you, I’m not.” He kept his features deadly serious. “I don’t fun anybody.”
“That I can believe,” she mumbled under her breath.
He cupped a hand around his ear. “What was that?”
She threw her arms up, an exasperated little sputter escaping her tempting rosebud mouth. “You are infuriating, Nathaniel . . .” She paused. “I don’t know your entire name.”
“And that matters?”
The lady nodded, sending the too-big-for-her-head cap slipping over her brow. “Well, you know mine is Cassia Cora McQuoid, and furthermore, if one wishes to provide a proper rebuke, one most certainly requires a person’s entire name.”
“You want to know my full name so you can dress me down?”
She gave another exuberant bob of her head.
“I’m going to have to decline,” he said.
Bright crimson splotches flared in her cheeks, and her enormous eyes went several degrees bigger. “You are insufferable, Nathaniel MacKay!”
He opened his mouth and closed it. He tried again. “MacKay? You know my surname.”