“You don’thaveto agree with me, you know.”
“’Course I do. My teeth, don’t you know. I’m rather fond of them.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
Georgina sat slumped in the chair she’d pulled up in front of the wall of windows, pensively watching the choppy surface of the cold Atlantic surrounding theMaiden Anne. She heard the door open behind her, then footsteps crossing the room, but she wasn’t interested in who had disturbed her solitude. Not that she didn’t know. James was the only one who entered the cabin without knocking.
But she wasn’t speaking to James Malory, and hadn’t said more than two words to him since that night a week ago when he had carted her aboard his ship in the exact same manner he had once carted her out of an English tavern. And this undignified treatment wasn’t even the worst of it that night. No, the very moment he saw her brothers on the deck of his ship, he ordered them tossed over the side. And the man had had the unmitigated gall to tell them, just before they went over, that she had decided to sail with them, as if they couldn’t see the gag about her mouth, or the way he was holding her like a blasted piece of baggage.
Of course, no one had bothered to tell him what Drew and Boyd were doing on his ship in the first place. Any one of his men could have volunteered the information that if it weren’t for her brothers, they’d still be in the hold and theNereus’s men would still be walking the decks, rather than trussed up and deposited on the shore. But apparently they didn’t have the nerve to interrupt their crazy captain to enlighten him to that fact. Connie in particular should have said something, but one glance at him showed he was being much too entertained by the whole affair to see it ended by anything so mundane as an explanation.
It was possible that James knew by now that he’d behaved like an ungrateful wretch that night. But if he didn’t, he wasn’t going to hear it from her, since she was never talking to him again. And the blasted man didn’t even care. “Sulking, are we?” he’d remarked when he noticed. “Splendid! If a man must be burdened with a wife, thank God for small favors.”
That had really hurt, especially since she didn’t doubt for a moment that he sincerely meant it. And he must have meant it, since he hadn’t once tried to coax her into talking to him, railing at him, or anything else.
They shared the same cabin, she in her hammock, he in his great bed, and did everything possible to ignore each other. He succeeded admirably, but she had found, much to her chagrin, that when he was there, he wasthere. At least her senses knew it, going a little crazy every time he was near; sight, smell, hearing all attuned, heightened by remembered touch, remembered taste.
Even now, despite the desire not to, Georgina found herself watching James from the corner of her eyes as he sat down behind his desk. He appeared as relaxed as if he were alone, while she was now stiff with her awareness of him. He didn’t glance her way any more than she would turn her head to face him. She might as well not be there. In fact, she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why she was there, when it would have been much more in line with his behavior that night, if James had dumped her into the bay with her brothers.
She hadn’t asked why she was sailing with him. She’d have to talk to him to ask, and she’d cut her tongue out before she would give up her silent sulk, as he termed it. And if she was appearing childish with the attitude she’d adopted, well, so what? Was that any worse than his being a boorish madman with piratical tendencies toward kidnapping and plank walking or pushing, as the case were?
“Do you mind, George? That constant staring is getting on my bloody nerves.”
Georgina’s eyes snapped back to the boring view outside the window. Double-damn him, how did he know she’d been covertly watching him?
“It’s becoming quite tedious, you know,” he went on to remark.
She said nothing.
“Your sulking.”
She said nothing.
“’Course, what can one expect of a wench raised among barbarians.”
Thatdid it. “If you mean my brothers—”
“Imeanyour whole bloody country.”
“Well you’re a fine one to talk, coming from a country of snobs.”
“Better snobs than ill-mannered hotheads.”
“Ill-mannered?!” she shrieked, coming out of her chair in a burst of long-suppressed fury that took her across the room, right up to the side of his desk. “When you couldn’t even say thank-you for getting your life saved?”
He’d stood up before she got there, but it was not intimidation that had her backing up as he approached, merely an unconscious desire not to get walked over. “And just who was I to thank? Those benighted Philistines you call kin? The very ones who dumped me in a cellar to await transport to a hanging?”
“A circumstance you courted with every word out of your mouth!” she shouted up at him. “But despite what you deserved or didn’t, that was Warren’s doing. Not Boyd’s and Drew’s. They went against their own brother to help you, knowing full well that he’d beat the daylights out of them if he found out.”
“I’m not lacking in intelligence, brat. No one needed to tell me what they’d done. Why do you think I refrained from breaking their bloody necks?”
“Oh, that’s nice. And to think I wondered what I was doing here. I should have realized it was no more than another blow against my brothers, since you couldn’t stay in the area to do any worse damage. That’s it, isn’t it? Taking me along was your idea of the perfect revenge, because you knew it would drive my brothers crazy with worry.”
“Absolutely!”
She didn’t notice the color that had flooded his neck and face, proof positive that her deduction had more than doubled his anger and was responsible for his answer. All she heard was the answer, a death knell to her last hope, which she’d never have admitted clinging to.
So it was pain that made her lash out with retaliating scorn, “No more than I could expect of an Englishlord, a Caribbeanpirate!”
