“Your crew,” she answered. “Returning from whatever they’d been doing.”
He laughed. “Give it a few years, dear boy, and you’ll have more tolerance.”
“I’m not ignorant, Captain. I know what sailors usually do on their last night in port.”
“Oh? Familiar with that side of life, are you?”
Remember you’re a boy, remember you’re a boy, and for God’s sake, don’t blush again!
“Certainly,” Georgina answered.
She saw it coming, that devilish crook of brow, laughter gleaming in his so-green eyes. But even being braced for it didn’t help when she heard the next question.
“Is that from hearsay…or experience?”
Georgina choked on her gasp, and coughed for a good ten seconds, during which time the helpful captain pounded on her back. When she could finally breathe again, she figured she probably had a few broken vertebrae, thanks to the brick wall’s bricklike fists.
“I don’t believe, Captain Malory, that my experienceorlack of it, has any bearing whatsoever on this job.”
She had a lot more to say about his unorthodox questioning, but his “Quite right” took the wind out of her sails. Which was fortunate, since she wasn’t thinking like a twelve-year-old just then. And he had more to say anyway.
“You’ll have to forgive me, Georgie. It’s my habit to be derogatory, don’t you know, and indignation only invites further abuse in my book. So do try not to take it so personally, because to be perfectly honest with you, your displays of chagrin merely amuse me.”
She’d never heard anything so…so preposterous, and he had said it without a morsel of contrition. Deliberate goading. Deliberate teasing. Deliberate insults. Devil take him, he was a worse scoundrel than she’d first thought.
“Couldn’t you just refrain from such provocation…sir?” she gritted out.
He gave a short bark of laughter. “And miss little gems of wisdom like that one? No, dear boy, I don’t give up my amusements, not for man, woman, or child. I have so few of them, after all.”
“Mercy for no one, is that it? Not even sick children get excluded? Or do you finally deem me recovered enough to get up, Captain?”
“You had it right the first go round…unless, of course, you’re crying pity. I might take that into consideration. Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Crying pity?”
Rot the man, he was challenging her by bringing pride into it. And boys at the awkward age of twelve had a great deal of pride, which he was undoubtedly counting on. A girl at that age wouldn’t only cry pity, she’d be streaming tears along with it. But a boy would rather die than admit he couldn’t take a bit of ribbing, even if it was unmerciful ribbing. But devil take it, where did that leave her, a woman who wanted nothing more than to slap his arrogant face, but couldn’t because the masqueradingGeorgiewouldn’t do something like that?
And look at him, with features gone blank, and a tenseness in those wide shoulders and chest, as if her answer actually held some significance for him. More than likely he had some brilliant piece of sarcasm ready and waiting for her yes that he would be disappointed to waste.
“I have brothers, Captain, all older than myself,” she told him in a tight, frosty voice. “So being baited, badgered, and teased is nothing new to me. My brothers delight in it…though surely not as much as you do.”
“Well said, lad!”
To her chagrin, he looked as pleased as he sounded. Oh, if only she could slap him just once before she deserted theMaiden Anne.
But then a whole new set of emotions rose up to choke her as the man bent forward to grasp her chin, just as Mr. Sharpe had done, for a side-to-side examination of her face. Only unlike Mr. Sharpe’s, the captain’s touch was very gentle, with two fingers spread over her left cheek.
“All that courage, and as Connie said, not a whisker in sight.” The fingers trailed down her smooth cheek to her jaw, very, very slowly, or so it seemed to her rioting senses. “You’ll do, brat.”
Georgina was going to be sick again, if the funny queasiness now stirring in her lower belly was any indication. But her nervous stomach quieted again as soon as the captain took his hand away. And all she could do was stare at his back as he walked out of the cabin.
Chapter Thirteen
The flare-up of Georgina’s queasiness might have passed for the moment, but it was still a good five minutes before her tumultuous thoughts quieted down enough for her to realize she was finally alone in the cabin. When she did realize it, her sound of disgust was loud enough to be heard outside the door if anyone happened to be there. No one was, as she discovered a moment later when she yanked the door open.
Mumbling to herself about brick walls and arrogant English lords, she marched to the stairs and was halfway up them before she happened to remember that she’d been more or less ordered to take a nap. She paused, worrying at her lower lip with the “pearly whites” Captain Malory had remarked on. What to do, then? Well, she certainly wasn’t going back to bed, regardless of that silly order. Her priorities were straight, and finding Mac and somehow getting off theMaiden Annebefore it was too late came first.
