“I doubt they have, but under no circumstances will I. So don’t quibble any more about my means of retribution, Connie. It’s either that or the cat-o’-nine-tails. And if you want to talk about blood getting all over the deck…”
Chapter Fourteen
“Blathering about brick walls again, are ye? Did that mon hit ye sae hard then? Ye should’ve let me do some damage tae—”
“I meant the captain,” Georgina hissed as she hurried Mac along in search of a private spot where they could talk. “He’s the same two-ton ox who carted me out of the tavern that night I had hoped to forget.”
Mac stopped in his tracks. “Ye canna mean that yellow-haired laird?He’syer brick wall?”
“He’sour captain.”
“Och, now, that isna good news.”
She blinked at that calm reply. “Didn’t you hear me? Captain Malory is the same man—”
“Aye, I heard ye aright. But ye’re no’ locked up in the hold, or hasna he seen ye yet?”
“He didn’t recognize me.”
Mac’s brows shot up, not because he was surprised at that answer, but because Georgina sounded piqued that it was so. “Are ye sure he got a good look at ye?”
“From top to bottom,” she insisted. “He simply doesn’t remember me.”
“Aye, well, dinna take it personally, Georgie. They had other things on their minds that night, the both of them. They’d been drinking as well, and some men can ferget their own names after a bad night.”
“I thought of that. And I’m not taking it personally.” She sniffed indignantly at the very thought. “I was nothing but relieved…after I got over my shock of seeing him here. But that’s not to say something might stir his memory yet, like seeing you.”
“Ye’ve a point there,” Mac said thoughtfully. He glanced over his shoulder to where England was no more than a speck on the horizon.
“It’s too late for that,” she said, reading his mind correctly.
“So it is,” he agreed, then, “come. There’s tae many ears here.”
He led her not to the forecastle, but belowdecks to the boatswain’s domain, now his, a room where the extra rigging was stored. Georgina plopped down on a fat coil of rope while Mac went through the motions of thinking: a bit of pacing, a bit of sighing, and tongue clicking.
Georgina practiced patience as long as she could, all of five minutes, before demanding, “Well? What are we going to do now?”
“I can avoid the mon as long as possible.”
“And when it’s no longer possible?”
“I hope I’ll have grown some hair on my face by then,” he said, offering her a grin. “A red bush tae cover this old leather will be as good a disguise as yer own, I’m thinking.”
“It will, won’t it?” she said, brightening, but only for a moment. “But that only solves one problem.”
“I thought we only had the one.”
She shook her head before slouching back against the bulkhead. “We also have to figure out a way for me to avoid the man.”
“Ye know that isna possible, lass…unless ye take sick.” He beamed, thinking he’d just solved the matter. “Ye wouldna be feeling poorly, would ye?”
“That won’t work, Mac.”
“It will.”
She shook her head again. “It would if I was to sleep in the fo’c’sle as we assumed, but I’ve already been informed otherwise.” And then she sneered, “The captain’s magnanimously offered to share his own cabin with me.”
“What!?”
