She joined her “officers” for the morning meal. Drew was looking a bit glum now after her desertion. Heseemedto be ignoring them, just staring off into space. He’d been unable to hide a brief moment of surprise, though, when she showed up. After yesterday, he’d probably thought he wouldn’t be seeing her again.
He couldn’t help but hear the camaraderie between her and her friends, the laughter, Richard’s usual teasing that could get risqué occasionally, and today was no exception. All harmless, but Drew wouldn’t know that. The men certainly weren’t treating her with the respect Drew might figure a “captain” was due, but she’d already decided it would be impossible to try to enforce that for an entire voyage just for his benefit, when the easy bantering was normal for pirates and this was how they were with Nathan, too.
And she’d gotten comfortable, too, donning the britches Margery had insisted she wear. Maybe that had accounted for Drew’s brief look of surprise. He may not have ever seen a woman wearing britches before.
Gabrielle didn’t leave the cabin when her friends did. She continued to lounge at the table where they’d eaten. She stretched out her feet and crossed them under the table. Leaning back in her chair, she even locked her hands behind her head. In no way did it look like she might still be there to finish the meal.
Drew made no pretense about watching her now. As soon as the others left and they were alone in the room, his dark eyes latched onto her and stayed there. He might have been trying to disturb her with his perusal, but she didn’t allow it to work. The conversation she was going to start was going to be entirely in her favor today. She wasn’t going to give him a chance to start in onhiscampaign again.
She stretched a little so that her breasts were molded more firmly against the thick cotton of her shirt. Just a little. She didn’t want to be obvious that she was showing off her attributes to him. That she wasn’t tightly bound beneath the black shirt wasn’t for his benefit, though. She wasn’t pretending to be a boy, after all, and never had tried to conceal her breasts when she dressed in her ship’s togs, as she called them. The shirts she wore were thick enough to keep her modest, with a thin camisole beneath them.
She gave Drew a curiously innocent look now and asked, “Do you really think I’m a coward, just because I decided that I prefer to sleep naked, as I usually do, and I went off to find a cabin where I could do that?”
His incredulous expression made her want to crow with laughter, but she kept her features schooled. It was a legitimate question, after what he’d taught her parrot to say. Of course, she hadn’t needed to elaborate.
After a moment or two he said, “You could have slept naked here.”
She gave him a thoughtful nod. “Yes, I know. And it probably wouldn’t have bothered me to do so. But I was afraid it might disturb you, and it’s not my intention to deprive you of sleep. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble sleeping with your new roommates.”
He snorted, but it was telling, how quickly he changed the subject when he asked, “Who’s this Carla person that the parrot calls a witch? That wouldn’t be your real name, would it?”
Gabrielle laughed. She couldn’t help it. He was still trying to annoy her with insults. It didn’t work at all this time.
“Miss Carla is the parrot’s name,” she said with a grin. “But just so you don’t go thinking she was taught to insult herself, you might as well know that Carla is also my mother’s name.”
“Ah, I see. How nice,” he said, sarcasm thick in his voice. “You call your mother a witch. I’m not the least bit surprised a pirate would disrespect her parent that way.”
She gritted her teeth for only a moment. She wasnotgoing to let him annoy her. “That’s a natural conclusion,” she allowed, “even if it is wrong. I loved my mother. It was my father who didn’t like her very much after the bloom wore off their marriage. And the parrot belonged to my father long before he gave her to me, so Miss Carla acquired most of her vocabulary from him, not me.”
“How did such a mismatch even occur? A pirate marrying an English aristocrat? Or was that just a lie you made up so you could snag a lordly husband? Are you even legitimate, or just a pirate’s bastard?”
“I don’t care how derogatory you get about me,” she said stiffly. “But you’ll bloody well keep your derision off my parents.”
Since it must have sounded like the threat she intended, he asked, “Or what?”
“You might want to keep in mind that there is still a plank here with your name etched on it.”
He chuckled, confident now that she wasn’t serious, despite her sharp tone. “So why did he marry her?”
Gabrielle had to take a moment to regain her composure. Damned man had done it to her again, aggravated her enough to lose control.
“He was treasure hunting at the time. He considered her a shortcut to what he was after.”
“You have to be joking.”
“No, he takes his treasure hunting quite seriously,” she replied.
“I suppose the better question would have been, why did she marry him?”
Was he really interested in her family, or just trying to distract himself? Part of getting her own composure back was to discompose him again, and she’d done that with subtle enticements she’d witnessed other women practicing more blatantly, a slow sweep of her long lashes, a look she hoped was sensual, a lazy stretching of muscles that weren’t cramped—but he didn’t know that.
She shrugged. “She married for one of the more common reasons.”
“Love?”
“No, because she wanted children.”
“Ah,thatreason.” He chuckled. “So how many siblings did you end up with?”
