Jason shot him a look but said nothing.
Declan Shaw had served time in Newgate Prison after being wrongly accused of kidnapping. Jason had been on assignment in India at the time, and his friend had been spared prison by the woman who was now his wife.
“Pity too,” rhapsodized the mercenary. “You. Alone at sunset. The icy waves, the frigid wind, the crusty film of algae and fish guts. So romantic.”
“Spare me your fantasies,” Jason said, lighting his own cheroot.
“Not my fantasy, mate. You’re the man who’s ferrying a female translator to bloodyIcelandso she can have a go atpirates. Or so says the gossip. Interesting choice, if it’s true.”
“Interesting,why?” Jason bit out.
“That depends,” said Shaw, tossing the butt of his cheroot into the sea. “If the female translator is a sweaty, sour-faced woman who you intend to roll around Iceland in an ox cart.Orif she’s young and beguiling and will see Iceland riding on your lap.”
Jason was just about to tell Shaw to bugger off when the hatch behind them creaked open and a blond head popped out.
Jason’s cheroot froze halfway to his mouth. He stared at the face he hadn’t seen in three days.
Shaw snickered. “Well, there’s our answer, isn’t it? Pleasant chat, North.”
“Sod off, Shaw.” Jason pitched his cheroot overboard. “Miss Tinker?” Jason called, carefully approaching the opened hatch. “Are you—?”
“Do not, if you please,” said Isobel Tinker. Her voice was weak. She would not look at him. Her gloved hands grasped the top rung of the ladder with a death grip, and she laid her forehead on her wrist. “I need a moment.”
“Should I—?” Jason was at a loss for what to offer. The skin of her face was dull and grayish. She’d plaited her hair against her head in two short, spiky braids. Her body was smothered by a bulky teal cloak.
“A moment,” she repeated, turning her head sideways. She sucked in a gulp of air.
“Let me hand you up,” he suggested, looking around, cursing the crudeness of the brigantine. “Here, take my hand.”
“I will not.” She clung to the ladder.
“Perhaps the deck is not—”
“Resist the temptation to see some solution here, Your Grace. I need only fresh air.” She lifted her head. “And dry land.”
“Do you mean to...” he searched for the correct phrase, “...crawl out? Entirely unaided?”
“When I require assistance, you will know it. Otherwise...” and now she clamped her mouth shut and closed her eyes, presumably fighting a wave of discomfort, “...keep back.”
Jason employed considerable self-constraint and watched her ascend slowly, shakily, to the deck. She had nearly hatched herself and was reaching a trembling hand for a railing when he said, “Oh for God’s sake,” and lifted her.
He swept one hand around her waist and another onher outstretched arm and pulled her up. She reached for the railing that bordered the passage, and he draped her there, like a sheet on a line.
He stepped back.
“Thank you,” she said, speaking to the deck.
He made a dismissive sound. “Miss Tinker, but this cannot be—”
She held up a hand, silencing him.
Jason complied. He’d been unprepared for how miserable she would be. The woolen cape concealed an Isobel-shaped body that, already diminutive, appeared to be shrinking. Her head was uncovered, and the wind plucked at her braids, whipping blond tendrils across her cheeks. She looked wretched.
“You look wretched,” he said.
“I am wretched.”
“I’m so sorry you’re afflicted by ocean travel in this way,” he said. “If I’d known—”
