“I think water is overrated, Elsie,” she said faintly. “There is so much of it outside.”
Elsie stared at her. “Miss, what did you do?”
Marguerite turned. “Fine. If you must know, that—that pirate would not listen to reason, so I threw water in his face.”
Elsie’s mouth opened. The latch twisted. Both women froze.
“Oh, no,” Marguerite whispered.
Elsie clutched the pail tighter. “Is it him?”
The latch moved again.
Marguerite’s mind supplied an immediate procession—sailors with hard faces, officers with ropes, Tristan standing behind them in his wet shirt, inscrutable, magnificent, and cruelly dry-eyed. They would haul her on deck. They would make her walk the plank for assaulting naval authority with bathwater. The sharks would circle below, delighted at last to have French seasoning.
“There they are. They will make me walk the plank. The sharks will have me for dinner, Elsie.”
The door opened.
Marguerite screamed.
Elsie screamed.
The person on the other side screamed too, though in a youthful register.
A cabin boy stood in the doorway, pale, round-eyed, and holding a steaming bucket in both hands. Behind him, two more boys waited in the passage with additional buckets, their expressions suggesting they had expected to deliver hot water and had instead arrived at a murder.
“For milady’s bath,” the first boy squeaked.
Marguerite stared at the bucket. Steam curled upward. Apparently, mercy smelled sweet.
“Are you sure this is for my bath?” And not some skin-boiling torture…
“Yes, miss. Captain’s orders.”
Relief arrived so swiftly her knees softened. She caught the edge of the table and tried to make the gesture look intentional,as if one often gripped furniture while receiving ordinary household triumphs.
The boy shuffled forward and set the bucket near the tub. More water followed. Bucket after bucket. Warmth began to rise through the cabin, softening the air, fogging the edge of the stern window, turning the copper tub into a promise.
Marguerite watched it fill. She should have been ashamed. She was, a little. But beneath the shame, blooming like heat beneath cold skin, came something far less respectable. She had thrown water in the Duke of Stormhaven’s face, and instead of being condemned to death by sharks, her lack of diplomacy had ended in victory. A small victory, perhaps. A wet victory. A victory with steam rising from it.
Marguerite looked at the tub, then at Elsie, whose green face had acquired a grudging respect.
“Perhaps,” Marguerite said, “directness has occasional uses.”
Elsie hugged her pail and closed her eyes. “Don’t let it go to your head, miss.”
Chapter fourteen
Midnight came. Tristan stood outside his own cabin door, one hand braced on the frame, and felt his pulse beat in his palm. The lantern swung, throwing his shadow across the passage.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
What sort of bastard waited with bated breath to consummate a bargain? Heat moved through him, followed at once by a slash of cold that sat badly in his gut. He was not a pirate, damn it all. She had accepted the terms with those cool diplomatic eyes and that dangerous little lift of the chin. They were both adults, old enough to know what bargains cost.
Left. Right.
The light’s motion worked on his nerves until his jaw locked. His hand tightened on the frame, then loosened, then tightened again. Enough of this. He would enter the cabin, consummate the bargain, and leave.
