Marguerite’s throat closed, and beneath the shawl, a sliver of cold found its way into her spine.
“This has all been accounted for. Several clauses of my agreement with Tristan—I mean, with the duke—make provision for the temporary nature of the voyage. There is no confusion. No illusion. No expectation beyond the terms already discussed.”
Elsie sighed. “Did you make a clause for how you look when he leaves in the morning?”
Marguerite said nothing.
“Did you make one for the way you smile at the hatch when you think no one’s seein’? Or the way you jump when footsteps pass the door?”
Marguerite looked away. The sea lay bright beyond the hatch, untroubled by her humiliation.
Elsie took one step closer. “Please protect yourself. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
Marguerite folded her arms beneath the shawl, holding herself together with pressure because dignity had become unreliable.
“I am not a child.”
“No. You’re worse. Children know when they want to be loved. You make contracts so you don’t have to say it.”
Her chin lifted. “I am in perfect command of the situation.”
Elsie looked at her with such weary affection that Marguerite’s certainty wavered.
“Then why,” Elsie asked softly, “are you cryin’ because we’re almost where you wanted to go?”
Marguerite had no answer.
None that would survive being spoken.
The ship creaked around them. Water slapped against the hull. Somewhere overhead, a bell rang, counting time whether she wished it counted or not.
“I’ll fetch tea,” Elsie said.
The door closed with a soft click. Marguerite stood in the warm hush of the cabin, listening to the ship breathe around her. Wood creaked. Water dragged along the hull. Somewhere above, men called to one another in the brisk, ordinary tones of a world that continued even when a woman discovered something inside her had become dangerously tender.
Chapter twenty
Marguerite tried not to tiptoe as she stepped onto the quarterdeck. She didn’t need to be ashamed for wanting to know the place where Tristan commanded the ship. Curiosity had played its part, of course, but curiosity had become a convenient name for several less orderly feelings. Anxiety. Restlessness. A certain intolerable ache beneath the ribs whenever she thought of Naples drawing closer with every league of water they left behind. What if Elsie were right?
The sea was brighter than it had any right to be, the sky washed clear by wind, the frigate leaning into her course with a purposeful grace Marguerite resented. Everything aboard the ship knew what it was doing. The sails swelled and softened. The ropes held. The men moved. Orders passed from mouth to mouth with brisk efficiency. Even the gulls wheeled overhead as if they had received instructions in advance.
And Tristan stood at the helm, one hand resting near the wheel, coat dark against the light, boots braced easily againstthe pitch of the deck, his face turned toward the sails with that severe concentration she had come to recognize as command.
Only Lorenzo was with him, lounging with his guitar, plucking at the strings as if the quarterdeck were an Italian terrace and not the nerve center of a warship.
Tristan turned his head to her.
Would she be welcome here? She had never approached him in this place where he was more captain and less hers. If he dismissed her, she would have to retreat with dignity while her heart gathered its skirts and bled quietly behind her ribs.
His gaze moved once around the quarterdeck, no doubt measuring officers, sailors, distance . . . Then he held out his hand.
Pulse speeding, trying not to show all her teeth in a besotted smile, Marguerite went to him.
“This is where you command?” she asked, resting her gloved fingertips on one spoke of the wheel.
The ship shifted around them, and the wheel tugged faintly, alive with the sea.
“This is where he broods and shouts at his poor officers and sailors, carissima,” Lorenzo said, plucking a mournful chord.
