Page 31 of A Dance with the Wayward Duke
“And bathed less often, apparently.”
A laugh threatened him. Desire sharpened it into something else. He leaned in, lowering his voice. “We will have our joint operations, Miss d’Ailes, bath or no bath. Even if I have to lick you clean.”
Her eyes flashed like a six-pounder touching fire. A bucket stood by the rail, half-full from a recent swabbing. Tristan saw her glance toward it. Saw calculation, outrage, and opportunity align in those blue eyes. He could have stepped back. He could have caught her wrist. He could have done a dozen sensible things.
He did none of them.
Marguerite seized the bucket in both hands and flung the water into his face.
Cold struck him blind. It hit hair, eyes, mouth, chest, ran beneath his collar and down his spine in a shocking sheet. Old scrub water streamed from his jaw, and his hair fell loose over his brow.
Marguerite stood before him, breathing fast, cheeks blazing. “There. One of us has begun.”
Then she stormed away. Tristan wiped water from his eyes with one hand.
Every sailor on deck found work with the frantic devotion of men recently granted a second life. A marine stared at the horizon as if expecting France to reappear. The bosun examined a knot so closely he might have proposed marriage to it.
“Magnificentsprezzatura, fratello.” Lorenzo’s voice drifted from somewhere behind him.
Tristan did not turn. “One word, Lorenzo, and I’ll put you in the hold.”
Chapter thirteen
Marguerite entered the cabin. She hoped a woman could be vibrating internally like a harp string and still cross a threshold with dignity. She shut the door behind her.
What had she done?
She had thrown a bucket of water at the captain. Not merely the captain. The Duke of Stormhaven. The ambassador to Naples. The man upon whose ship she now depended for passage, safety, reputation, dinner, and the continued avoidance of English creditors.
She had thrown water in his face.
In his face.
His very handsome face, which had been tanned beyond what should be permitted by law, set above a white shirt damp enough to reveal that Providence had grown careless with muscle distribution. He had stood there barking at her in that maddening way of his. Instead of responding with diplomacy, she had used a bucket.
Elsie, who was sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around a wooden pail, lifted her head. Her pallor had not improved. If anything, it had acquired a more philosophical shade of green.
“Did your diplomacy work this time, miss?”
“Oh, splendidly,” Marguerite said, wringing her hands once before catching herself and clasping them behind her back. “Wonders. Absolute wonders.”
Elsie raised one eyebrow. Marguerite looked away. The eyebrow remained raised. She could feel it. Elsie’s eyebrows had social influence beyond their station.
“Well,” Marguerite continued quickly, “if you insist on particulars, I may have committed a minor faux pas.”
Elsie waited.
“Nothing worrying,” Marguerite added. “Or—well. Nothing dry.”
Elsie’s second eyebrow joined the first. “Did you get the water for the bath?”
Marguerite opened her mouth. Closed it.
Footsteps moved beyond the door. Low male voices passed, then stopped. Marguerite went still, and her heart, already behaving without authorization, sprang directly into her throat.
Perhaps it would be best if she threw herself into the sea before they came for her. No. That was foolish. The sea was cold. Also full of sharks. Did the Channel have sharks? It was English water, so if it did, they were no doubt gray, judgmental, and underfed.
She crossed to the small stern window and looked out at the darkening water. It slapped against the hull with an implacable sound.
