“If you’re trying to distract me from my pain, you’re doing a good job.” He brushed his fingers softly over the hand she was leaning on his desk.
She jerked her hand away. She was out of her depth, trying to be nice to her worst enemy. She wished her fake relative, Andrew, were here to give her a few acting lessons. She was making a good start at being nice to Bastard, and she didn’t want to ruin it by getting angry over his touching her.
“I’ll wager your fancy cook has something for sunburns or knows how to make a cream for it. You should ask, because that burn is going to feel worse tomorrow than it does today.”
“You know about sunburns, too?”
“I fell asleep in a field one summer and woke up with burned feet and hands. Yes, it can be painful.”
“Why were you without shoes?”
“I liked running about barefoot at that age—well, sneaking about. Shoes were too noisy for sneaking. But you ought to treat your sunburn.”
He raised a brow. “Your concern is...”
When he didn’t finish, she did, saying, “Suspect? I recall the cream stinging horribly for a while before it got around to soothing.”
He laughed, but then he slapped his chest, leaving a white handprint on the pink skin. “This is nothing, Jack. I grew up under a much hotter sun.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Jackie returned with a lit candle, which he set on the desk next to Jacqueline, reminding her, “Don’t let your food get cold again, m’lady.”
She gave the freckled boy a hard look. “What did we agree on?”
He blushed. “M’lady Jack.”
“That wasn’t it,” she mumbled as the boy quickly left, then said to Bastard, “He really is nervous around you, isn’t he? You should put him at ease.”
“I haven’t adopted him. He’ll figure out in due course that I don’t bite.”
That was debatable, particularly since Bastard’s expression implied the remark had been for her rather than the boy. But starting an argument wasn’t on the agenda tonight, so she held her tongue and reached for the needle instead, but realized she ought to remove the broken stitch first before she put in neat ones.
“This will hurt,” she said, but yanked the thread out before she finished the warning.
“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”
She managed not to grin, but glanced up at his face before she straightened. Damn, not again. Those sensual bright eyes of his, pinning her, stirring her insides, stealing her breath and voice. She closed her eyes, counted to ten, breathed again.
“Jack?”
“I was doing that imagining thing again,” she lied, and moved away from him.
“So was I,” he said in husky tones.
Chapter Twenty-Three
YOU SURE YOU WANTher doing that?”
Jacqueline didn’t glance at Mortimer, who’d entered the cabin silently and was now standing next to her. Her cheeks were still hot from that mesmerizing moment she’d just shared with her nemesis. It had been a mistake to get this close to him again, and she wasn’t even done yet!
“She’s a competent seamstress,” Bastard calmly told his friend.
“She’s a competent wound maker,” Mortimer rejoined caustically.
Belligerence she could more easily handle, and being nice to Bastard’s disagreeable first mate wasn’t part of her plan. “If you’ve business here, state it, then get out. I need full concentration to apply this needle.” She picked up the needle and passed it twice through the flame before pointing at Bastard. “And you get on the bed. I’m not getting a kink in my back for you.”
He was grinning widely as he stood up and went to the bed. But Mortimer crossed his arms and demanded, “Why are you willing to tend the wound you gave him?”
