“Ye knew verra well I’d never let ye sail alone. Short of locking ye up, I had nae choice. But I’m thinking I should’ve locked ye up.”
“Maybe you should have.”
He heard her sigh and snorted. “There ye go agreeing wi’ me again. And ye’ve been acting passing strange all week. Is the mon working ye tae hard?”
Hard? She couldn’t say that he was. In fact, half the things the captain had told her she’d have to do, she’d never gotten around to doing.
He was usually up and partially dressed before her in the morning. The one time she beat him out of bed, he behaved as if she’d done something wrong rather than right. She was learning to distinguish his moods, from his customary drollery to his really nasty taunts when he was annoyed about something, and that morning he’d been seriously annoyed. He’d made it seem like a punishment, her having to dress him that day. His comments, his manner, everything made it seem so, and had her swearing she’d be a slugabed the rest of the voyage.
She hoped she’d never have to experience anything so nerve-racking again. Having to get close to him was bad enough, but to do it when she knew him to be angry…Well, so far it hadn’t happened again. Nor had he ever asked her to help him undress for his bath in the evening.
Even that hadn’t turned out to be an everyday occurrence as he had implied it would. He still wanted his back scrubbed when he did bathe, but two nights out of the last seven he’d told her not to bother with the bath at all, had even offered her the use of his tub instead. She declined, of course. She hadn’t been ready to risk a total strip-down yet, even if he had been honoring the sign she set outside his door several times each day.
Then there was the shaving of him. That first time, she didn’t know why she hadn’t been sick. It had felt like all hell had broken loose in her belly. If she had had to stand there much longer, the morning would likely have had a different ending. Instead, she’d finished his chin with a few strokes, tossed a towel at him, and run out of the cabin before he could stop her, yelling that she’d be back in a trice with his breakfast.
He’d only asked her to shave him once more, and that time she’d nicked him in so many places, he’d told her sarcastically that he’d be wise to grow a beard. But he didn’t. Most of the crew did, including the first mate, but the captain continued to shave each day, either in the morning or in the late afternoon. He just did it himself now.
Not once had she had to play footman for him. He either ate right from the tray she brought in or waved her away when she tried to place the dishes before him. And not once had he disturbed her sleep to ask for something in the middle of the night, as he’d assured her he would.
All in all, she had very little to do and a lot of free time on her hands. This she spent in the cabin when it was vacant, or on deck with Mac when it wasn’t, trying to limit her times with the captain to only what was necessary. But if she was acting strange, enough for Mac to notice, it was entirely James Malory’s fault.
The scant week she had been on his ship seemed more like forever. She was constantly tense, had lost her appetite, was losing sleep, too. And she still got nauseous if he came too close to her, when he looked at her in a certain way, sometimes even when she stared at him too long, andeverytime she was treated to the flagrant flaunting of his naked body, which was every blasted night. It was no wonder she wasn’t sleeping well, no wonder she was a bundle of nerves. And it was no wonder Mac noticed.
She would have preferred not to discuss it at all, she was so confused over what she was feeling. But Mac was sitting there staring at her, awaiting some kind of answer. Maybe some common-sense advice from him was just what she needed to put a new perspective on what was bothering her.
“The work isn’t hard physically,” Georgina allowed, staring down at the rope in her lap. “What’s hard is having to serve an Englishman. If he were anyone else…”
“Aye, I ken yer meaning. Here ye were in a snit tae leave—”
Her head snapped up. “A snit? A snit!”
“Practicing impatience then, but the point is ye were in a hurry tae leave England and all things English behind, and it was that verra impatience that has ye stuck now wi’ just what ye were trying tae get away from. Him being a laird only makes it worse.”
“He acts like one, I agree,” she said disdainfully. “But I doubt he actually is. Don’t they have some cardinal rule about aristocrats and trade not mixing?”
“Something of the like, but they dinna all follow it. Besides, there’s nae cargo, if ye’ll recall, sae he isna in trade, at least no’ this voyage. But he is a laird, a viscount as I heard it.”
“How splendid for him,” she sneered, then sighed heavily. “You were right. That actually does make it worse. A blasted aristocrat. I don’t know why I doubted it.”
“Look on this experience as atoning fer yer impulsiveness and hope yer brothers take that into account afore they drop the roof on yer head.”
She grinned slightly. “I knew I could count on you to cheer me up.”
He snorted and went back to splicing. She did, too, but she was soon brooding again over what was really bothering her. She finally decided to broach it.
“Have you ever heard of a person getting sick when they get too close to something, Mac?”
His light gray eyes pinned her with a curious frown. “Sick how?”
“Sick. You know, nauseous.”
His brow cleared instantly. “Oh, aye, lots of foods will do that, when a mon’s already feeling poorly from drink, or a woman’s going tae have a bairn.”
“No, not when something is already wrong with you. I meant when you’re feeling perfectly fine, until you get close to a certain thing.”
He was frowning again. “A certain thing, is it? And will ye be telling me what this thing is that’s making ye sick?”
“I didn’t say it was me.”
