Cassia held her breath.
“I care about you,” he finished, deflating that great hope in her heart.
He cared about her, and even that admission had been a reluctant one on his part.
Disappointment filled her breast, and she proved so very selfish and greedy because she wanted more.
Does it matter, though? a voice needled. He cares about you. He’d just said as much. That was enough. Or it should be.
Cassia lowered her eyes to his neck and fought to release a painful breath she’d not even realized she was holding. She’d thought there could be nothing worse than never finding a man to truly love her. There was. It was finding a man whom she loved so desperately and discovering that he only cared for her.
“Cassia?” he said gruffly.
She forced herself to meet his gaze. “Would you have offered to marry me if we hadn’t made love?” she asked quietly, and she heard it, a palpable hesitation from him that hung in the air between them. “I thought so, Nathan.”
He flexed his jaw. “But we did make love. Furthermore, you should have considered that before.” He lowered his voice. “You’ll be ruined if society learns you’ve been aboard my ship, alone with me and my crew.”
Not for the first time, she allowed herself to think precisely what would happen if the world discovered where she’d been these past days. Her siblings would be ruined, and while she hurt inside at the idea that she might inadvertently have brought pain to her family, she could not bring herself to regret the freedom she’d known, and she was staggered by the realization that she’d change nothing. She’d not give up these experiences, and all she’d seen . . . or the time she’d had with Nathan.
Cassia lifted her gaze to Nathan’s, only to find his eyes searingly on her.
“Your crew will not say anything, Nathan,” she said softly. “No one knows I’m here.” She turned her palms up. “Why, no one even knows my real name. I am a MacKay.” She paused, chewing at the tip of her finger. “Though I suppose I should consider what might happen if the world believes a MacKay was alone at sea. I suspect the feud between our clans would only further intensify, and—”
“Cassia,” Nathan warned in his low, deep baritone.
“Don’t you see,” she cried softly. “I don’t want you because you feel obligated. And it may seem silly and immature and naive, but . . . but I always wanted a man who wanted to be with me not out of any sense of duty.”
“Why can’t it be both?”
She willed him to understand. “I want romance, Nathan.” She moved her eyes over each angle of his beloved face. “I want a man so moved by his feelings for me that he’ll write me verses or sing me songs or . . . or . . . snip a lock of my hair to keep close . . . or brings flowers.”
He stared at her with stricken eyes. Or mayhap that was her own expression reflected in his deep sapphire irises?
Cassia drew in a slow, uneven breath. “I do thank you for worrying after me and my reputation.” She placed her palms on his chest and smoothed them over the soft fabric of his lawn shirt. “However, you needn’t. I’d resigned myself to being a spinster prior to this voyage. I won’t marry . . .” She paused, and her fingers stilled, resting against the hard, muscled contours of his chest. “Unless it is for love.”
The muscles under her palm jumped in the only indication he’d heard her.
He stared back, his expression unreadable, his gaze opaque, and for a long, long minute, Cassia held her breath and waited. Waited for him to speak the words she so desperately wished for him to speak. Waited for him to offer meager assurances of his affections.
And yet, as only silence continued on, hope withered and died and fell like a thousand little charred scraps to her lower belly.
At last, he nodded, slowly. “If you change your mind . . .”
Oh, God. Why does this hurt so very badly? “I won’t,” she said, her voice thick to her own ears.
Nathan searched his gaze over her face. “Why are you so damned obstinate, Cassia McQuoid?”
“La, Nathan. I might even think you want to marry me,” she teased. Only her voice trembled, for her words weren’t in jest; they were those of a woman who desperately wanted them to be true.
Nathan lingered, looking as if he were about to say more, and Lord help her for being a fool, hope came roaring back to life, and her heart lifted. Then, lowering his brow, he touched it to hers.
Shouts went up around the ship, cutting into whatever he was about to say.
A moment later footsteps thundered; the men and cabin boys in the lower deck streamed past, their feet having the sound of one of those thunderous stampedes her brother Arran had regaled Cassia and her siblings with the tales of some years earlier.
Nathan was already striding across the room, reaching for the handle.
KnockKnockKnock.
He yanked the panel open, interrupting Hayes mid-pounding of the door.
“What—?”
“The Renard,” Hayes interrupted. “He is putting us on the defensive.”
Nathan released a black curse that sent heat to her cheeks and, without a backward look, stormed from the cabin. His quartermaster followed closely behind him.
Cassia hurried after them. “Renard . . . You have a fox at sea?” she asked.
Both men ignored her.
“He’d the wind on his side,” Hayes was saying.
Cassia quickened her steps. “I’m really quite good at giving animals a chase. My sister once had a rabbit who was really quite speedy, and he took flight . . . not the actual flight. He’s not a bird, however—”
At last, she was seen. Nathan and Mr. Hayes paused briefly and stared at her incredulously a moment before resuming their talks, as Cassia found herself instantly forgotten for a second time.
And as Nathan fired off a series of questions, barking orders as crew members rushed past, she lengthened her strides, hurrying to keep up as Nathan and his second-in-command took the stairs quickly.
“Can we outrun him?” Nathan asked.
Outrun him?
Cassia paused on one of the rungs. Her brow dipped. What in blazes . . . ?
One of the cabin boys—Little Ron—brushed by, knocking her back to the moment, and Cassia resumed her climb, doing a sweep of the bustling main deck.
“See to the breechings!” Nathan shouted as one of his men came near, and a pair hastened in the opposite direction.
All hands had assembled, each man frantically rushing about, with shiny sabers fastened to their sides.
Sabers?
As Cassia hurried to join Nathan at the helm, she scanned the horizon, her eyes immediately landing on the outline of a large vessel. Even without their elucidation, Nathan and Hayes’s peculiar conversation began to make more sense. Suddenly, years of tales her brother and Jeremy had regaled Cassia and her siblings with came to her, of pirates, great scourges of the sea.
Cassia gripped the railing. “It’s not an actual fox, is it?” she whispered. “Fox . . . isn’t a person.” She made herself say it aloud. “A ship. It’s a ship.”
Nathan jerked his gaze over to her, looking at Cassia as though he’d only just recalled her presence. “Get her below.”
Stunned, Cassia widened her eyes . . . and then it hit her, all the questions she’d asked him about his shipping company, his evasive responses. His crew’s evasive responses. “Nathan, are you a pirate, too?”