LITMIR.BIZ

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don’t want to risk getting seasick.” She pursed her lips in prissy superiority.

      “Eat something,” Ryan said intractably. “That’s an order.”

      She sniffed, poking her nose into the air. “Your orders are foolish. Last time you gave me an order, you missed your chance to get rid of me.”

      A lead weight sank slowly in Ryan’s gut. “Do tell.”

      “I was going to go back to Boston in Mr. Warbass’s launch, but you sent me on that foolish errand about the cat—”

      “You kept getting underfoot—”

      “—and by the time I was finished, the launch had left.”

      The lead weight of regret hit bottom. “Next time you decide to abandon ship, remind me not to stop you.”

      “Remind yourself not to be so rude,” she returned.

      An idea struck him. “We’ll be hailing ships all through the next several days. I’ll put you on one that’s headed back into Boston.”

      She gave that superior-sounding sniff again. “You’re too late. I’ve decided to stay. You see, I realized what the problem was.” Her tone reminded him of a schoolmarm’s lecture. “The upheaval before a voyage upsets even a seasoned traveler. It’s an enormous undertaking, leaving one’s home and becoming a part of a tiny universe here in the middle of the sea. Anyone with a half-decent imagination is bound to have misgivings.”

      She stared directly at him, and said, “I suppose I should thank you. This voyage is going to be an adventure I should not like to miss. It was rude of you to order me about, but since it had such happy consequences, I forgive you.”

      “Don’t forgive me.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because I didn’t apologize, you goose!”

      “Well!” Indignation huffed from her.

      They stood in discomfiting silence for a time, listening to the song of the wind through the shrouds, the rhythmic creak of timber and the surge of saltwater past the hull. Seating herself on a lashed crate, she took out a steel-tipped pen and wrote something on the paper secured to the marbled board she held.

      “What are you writing?” Ryan asked.

      “Blinding rush of blue. It’s the most perfect phrase to describe the way the sea races past the hull.”

      “A letter home, then?”

      “It’s…um…private.”

      She shouldn’t have said that. He snatched the letter from her. “There’s no privacy on shipboard.”

      “Captain!”

      He would have given it back, but he kept remembering her words to Chad Easterbrook. I shall write a letter daily, telling you of all my adventures.

      Ryan glanced down at the board. She had a fine, legible hand.

      “Dear Mr. Easterbrook…” He didn’t have to read further. She was writing to the upright, insufferable Chad Easterbrook. What the hell had he ever done to earn such constancy?

      “Give that back,” she said, standing up, raising her voice.

      Ryan told himself this was none of his affair. He told himself he shouldn’t feel a hot stab of irritation that this Yankee spinster had given her admiration and esteem to Chad Easterbrook.

      “Not until you let me count the ways you love him,” Ryan teased. “For truly, he is a man of many facets. At least two.” He glanced at the page again and read further. Instead of the breathless schoolgirl phrases he expected to find, the contents of the note shocked him completely.

      …main stateroom is in an untidy state, and there is a steel money safe secreted under the banquette…

      Fury made the words melt before his eyes. “Ah. Never let it be said you’re not thorough, my dear Witch of the Wave. But then, shouldn’t you be listed on the manifest as spy rather than clerk or translator?”

      “Give that back,” she said again, reaching for the letter.

      The wind rattled the paper and then plucked it from his fingers. “Oops,” he said.

      “How dare you,” she snapped, stepping forward, the pen clenched in her fist.

      “It was an accident.” He widened his eyes in innocence.

      She heaved an exasperated sigh. “I shall only write another.”

      “That’s how you did it, then,” he said, glaring at her. “You got Abel to send you on this voyage by promising to monitor my every move.”

      “You can hardly blame him. He didn’t find you in a trustworthy…state that first night.”

      “He found me hopelessly drunk and in the process of seducing a half-naked wench. Did you write that down, hm?”

      “I—”

      “Suppose I report to you each time I take a piss. Will you be writing that, too?”

      She squinted at him, then pushed down her eyeglasses and peered over the top of them. “You are the rudest man I have ever met.”

      “Sugar, if you think that was rude, hang on to your bloomers, because I intend to get a lot worse.”

      Ryan stood back, watching her. When she wasn’t squinting, her eyes were quite remarkable, gold-flecked and strangely compelling. “Why do you look over the top of those spectacles in order to see?”

      “Because everything up close is blurred when I look through them.” She snapped her mouth shut and blanched.

      “Perfect,” said Ryan. Before she could stop him, he yanked the glasses off her, taking a few strands of hair along with them.

      She emitted an audible gasp, and, oddly, the sound excited him, for it reminded him of the startled inhalation of a woman who had been aroused. Of course, in this case the only thing he had aroused was her anger.

      “Give those back.”

      He dropped the spectacles overboard. “Oops.”

      She gaped at him. “You…you…brute. Cad. Troglodyte. Goth.” She exhausted her supply of insults, and still he remained unmoved.

      “I’m afraid it’s too late.”

      “That was my only pair.”

      “Then I guess you won’t be making any more of your sneaky little reports,” he snarled.

      “I’ll do as I please. I’ll write what I choose.”

      “No, you won’t. I am the captain of this ship. On land, that doesn’t mean much. But aboard the Swan it is everything. My word is law. My acts are unimpeachable.”

      “Am I supposed to be impressed by this?”

      “I rather hoped you would be.”

      “Well, I’m not.”

      “A pity. I guess I’ll have to find some other way to impress you.”

      “Don’t bother,” she snapped. “Nothing will work.” She turned on her heel, wobbling slightly with the motion. Her dignity, he could tell, was hanging by a thread. “Good day, Captain Calhoun,” she said over her shoulder, then made her way down to her quarters.

      Nine

      I can see the Lady has a genius for ruling, whilst I have a genius for not being ruled.

      —Jane Welsh Carlyle

      (1845)

      “Is there anything I can do for you?” Isadora asked the next day, cracking open the door to Lily’s chamber. She stepped back as the odor of sickness

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