“Georgie…”
“Oh, all right,” she snapped. “So it’s the captain. Half the time I get near him, my stomach reacts horribly.”
“Only half?”
“Yes. It doesn’t happen every time.”
“And ye’ve actually been sick? Actually vomited?”
“Once, yes, but…well, that was the first day, when I’d just found out who he was. He forced me to eat, and I was just too nervous and upset to hold anything down. Since then, it’s just been the nausea, sometimes worse than other times, but I haven’t vomited again—yet.”
Mac pulled at the red whiskers now covering his chin, mulling over what she’d said. What he suspected, he discounted, and so didn’t even mention it to her. She disliked the captain too much to be attracted to him, much less to be experiencing any sort of sexual desire that she might be mistaking for nausea.
Finally, he said, “Could it be the scent he wears, lass, or the soap he uses? Or maybe even something he puts on his hair?”
Her eyes widened just before she laughed. “Now why didn’t I think of that?” She jumped up, dropping her pile of rope into his lap.
“And where are ye off tae?”
“It’s not his soap. I use it myself to sponge off. And he doesn’t use anything on his hair, just lets it fly any which way. But he’s got a bottle of something he uses after he shaves. I’m going to go smell it now, and if that’s it, you can guess where it’s going.”
He was pleased to see her smiling again, but reminded her, “He’ll miss it if ye just toss it over the side.”
She almost said she’d worry about that later, but there was no point in courting trouble with that attitude. “So I’ll tell him the truth. He’s an arrogant beast, but…well, he’s not so insensitive that he’d continue to use something if he knew it made me ill. I’ll see you later, Mac, or tomorrow at any rate,” she amended, noting the sun was on its downward swing.
“Ye promise ye willna do anything tae get yerself punished?”
If he knew what punishment she’d been warned of, he wouldn’t have to ask that. “I promise.”
And she meant it. If it was the captain’s cologne that had been causing her such distress, there was no reason not to tell him about it. She should have mentioned it sooner, she was thinking, just before she ran right into him on the lower deck.
Her stomach flipped over, which brought a grimace to her face that she wasn’t quick enough to hide.
“Ah,” James Malory remarked, seeing it. “You must have read my mind, George.”
“Captain?”
“Your expression. You’ve divined that I have a bone to pick with you about your bathing habits, or should I say, your lack thereof?”
Her face turned pink, then almost purple with indignation. “How dare—”
“Oh, come now, George. D’you think I don’t know lads your age look on bathing as some kind of heinous torture? I was a lad once myself, you know. But you’re sharing my cabin—”
“Not by choice,” she got in.
“Regardless, I have certain standards I adhere to, cleanliness among them, or at the very least, the smell of cleanliness.”
He twitched his nose just for good measure, she was sure. And if she weren’t so furiously affronted, she might have burst into laughter, considering what she and Mac had just been discussing.Hefoundhersmell offensive? God, how ironic, and what poetic justice if it also made him ill.
He was continuing, “And since you haven’t made the slightest effort to rise to my standards—”
“I’ll have you know—”
“Donotinterrupt me again, George,” he cut in in his most autocratic tone. “The matter has already been decided. Henceforth, you will make use of my tub for a thorough scrubbing no less than once a week, more often if you like, and you will begin today. And that, dear boy, is an order. So I suggest you get busy if you’re still missish in desiring privacy for such things. You will have until the dinner hour.”
She opened her mouth to protest this new highhandedness of his, but the raising of that detestable golden brow reminded her that she didn’t dare, not when he’d made it a blasted order.
“Yes,sir,” she said, infusing the “sir” with as much contempt as she could manage without getting cuffed for it.
