Georgina had had the worst time getting to sleep that night, but the next thing she knew, the captain’s voice was calling, “Show a leg, George,” the age-old sailors’ adage that meant shed the covers quick and get moving. She blinked, and sure enough, daylight filled the cabin, bright enough for her to suppose she’d overslept.
She located the reason behind her lack of sleep and found him dressed, thank God, or at least partially so. Breeches and stockings were better than nothing. And even as she watched, he slipped into a black silk shirt similar in style to the white one he’d worn yesterday, though he didn’t lace up the front closing. The breeches were black, too. Give him an earring, and the cursed man would look like a pirate in that billowing shirt and tight pants, she thought uncharitably, and then sucked in her breath as she noticed he was wearing an earring today, a small golden one just barely visible under the blond locks still disarrayed from sleep and not combed back yet.
“You’re wearing an earring!”
That brought those bright green eyes to her, and the affectation she considered his most arrogant and irritating habit, the raising of just one golden brow. “Noticed, did you? And what d’you think of it?”
She wasn’t awake enough yet to think of being flattering instead of truthful. Baldly, she said, “It makes you look piratical.”
His grin was positively wicked. “D’you think so? I would have said rakish myself.”
She caught herself about to snort. She managed to just sound curious instead, “Why would you want to wear an earring?”
“Why not?”
Well, he was a fount of information this morning, wasn’t he? And what did she care if he wanted to look like a pirate, as long as he wasn’t one in actuality?
“Well, come along, George,” he said briskly now. “The morning’s half gone.”
She gritted her teeth as she sat up, swung with the hammock a few times, then dropped to the floor. He called her George with a good deal of relish, it seemed, as if he knew how it would irritate her. More manly sounding indeed. She knew of a number of Georges called Georgie, but not another female other than herself with that shortened name.
“Not used to sleeping in a hammock, are you?”
She glared at him, really fed up with his inaccurate assumptions. “Actually—”
“I could hear you tossing about all night long. All that squeaking rope woke me a number of times, I don’t mind telling you. I trust that’s not going to be a nightly occurrence, George. I suppose I’d have to offer to share my bed with you just so I won’t be disturbed.”
She blanched, even though he sounded as if he’d hate doing it. She had little doubt he’d do it anyway, and insist, no matter her protests. Over her dead body.
“It won’t happen again, Captain.”
“See that it don’t. Now, I hope you’ve a steady hand.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll be scraping the whiskers from my cheeks.”
She would? No, how could she? She might get sick again, and she could just see herself puking in his lap. She’d have to tell him about this propensity she had for getting nauseous when she got too close to him.
She groaned inwardly. How could she tell him something like that? He’d be so insulted, there was no telling what he’d do to her. He could, after all, make her life utterly miserable, much worse than it already was.
“I’ve never shaved anyone, Captain. I’d likely nick you to pieces.”
“I sincerely hope not, dear boy, since this is one of your duties. And as a valet, you’ll have to improve. Notice I’ve had to dress myself this morning.”
She was going to cry. There was just no way she would be able to avoid getting close to him. And he’d eventually notice that she had a serious aversion to him. How could he not if she ran for the chamber pot several times a day?
But maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe she was seasick. When she’d sailed the eastern coast with her brothers on short runs and never suffered it? When she’d crossed the ocean to England without the tiniest upset? It was him. But she could tell him she was seasick, couldn’t she?
She felt much better suddenly and even smiled as she promised, “I’ll do better tomorrow, Captain.”
Why he just stared at her for a long moment before answering curtly, she didn’t know. “Very well. I have to confer with Connie, so you’ve about ten minutes to fetch some warm water and dig out my razors. Don’t keep me waiting, George.”
Well, he was certainly put out that he’d had to dress himself, wasn’t he? she thought as he slammed the door behind him. He hadn’t even bothered to put on boots. She hoped he got splinters in his feet. No, he’d probably make her pick them out.
She sighed, then realized she had the cabin to herself for a few minutes. She didn’t hesitate to head straight for the commode. If it weren’t for Malory’s blasted time schedule, she wouldn’t chance it. But she’d never make it down to the hold to the chamber pot she’d hidden away there, not in the ten minutes allotted her to fetch the water for his shaving. Nor could she wait until she was finished shaving him. But after this, she was going to have to work on getting up before he did so she had more time.
James slammed back into the cabin the same way he’d left, with a lot of noise, the door hitting the wall this time. He expected to startle Georgie and meant to, her with her unexpected smile that he’d felt clear to his gut. Well, he’d startled her all right. If the color of her cheeks was any indication, she was going up in flames of mortification, too. But he was still the more startled. What a bloody dense ass he was, not to have considered how a female pretending not to be a female would manage such things as bathing and nature’s calls, even changing her clothes, on a ship full of men. By moving her into his cabin, he’d given her more privacy than she would have had otherwise, but that was for his sake, not hers, part of his game. There was still no lock on the door, no place where she could be assured of a little privacy.
With his mind centered on getting her pants off, he really should have considered these things. She must have, before she decided on this pretense. And it would be a safe bet that his cabin was not the place she had determined would offer the least risk of discovery. He’d more or less forced her to take this chance by rousing her from sleep and ordering her immediately to her duties. It was his fault she was now hiding her face against her pretty bare knees. And there wasn’t a bloody thing he could do about her embarrassment, and still keep up the pretense. If she really were a George, he wouldn’t back out of the room making apologies, would he? He’d treat the matter as nothing out of the ordinary, and it wouldn’t be, if she were a George.
But she wasn’t, and by God, there was nothing ordinary about this situation. The darling girl did have her pants down, and his senses had been relishing that fact since he’d stormed into the room.
James rolled his eyes ceilingward and stomped around the bed to find his boots. This is too much, he thought. She smiles at me and I get aroused. She sits on a bloody chamber pot and I get aroused.
“Don’t mind me, George,” he snapped out more sharply than he meant to. “I forgot my boots.”
“Captain, please!”
“Now don’t get missish. D’you think the rest of us never have to use that thing?”
Her groan told him plain enough he wasn’t helping, so he simply got out of there, slamming the door once again, and carrying his boots out with him. He was afraid the incident was going to be a setback for him. Some women could be peculiar about such things, like never wanting to set eyes again on a man who’d witnessed their embarrassment, or caused it. And a man didn’t have a prayer if he happened to do both.
Bloody everlasting hell. He had no idea how this girl would react, whether she’d laugh it off, blush for a few days, or dive under the nearest bed and refuse to come out. He hoped she was made of sterner stuff. Her masquerade suggested she had courage and a good deal of audacity. But he just didn’t know. And his mood took a swing for the worse that he was having any kind of setback at all, especially after the progress he had made last night.
Georgina wasn’t thinking about hiding under any beds. Her options were quite clear. She could jump ship, keep company with the rats in the hold for the rest of the voyage, or murder James Malory. And the last had the most appeal no matter how she looked at it. But when she got up on deck she heard that the captain was passing out punishments left and right, and for no good reasons, or, as one sailor put it, because he had a barnacle up his arse. And that, translated simply, meant he was displeased about something and taking it out on anyone foolish enough to cross his path this morning.
Some of the color that had still been riding her cheeks receded immediately. By the time she got back to the cabin with the warm water for his lordship’s shaving, she decided that he just might be more embarrassed than she was…well, not more. No one in the entire world could ever have been more mortified than she. But if he had felt even a tiny bit of that, then she could live with it, she supposed, especially if it had so upset him as to put him in a black mood.
Of course, that reasoning gave him a sensitivity she wouldn’t have thought him capable of. His reaction was directly related to hers. If she hadn’t behaved like such a ninny, missish he’d called her, then he would have thought nothing of it. But he knew he’d embarrassed her worse than any of his taunts could ever do, and so he was ashamed to have done it.
The door opened hesitantly a few minutes later, and Georgina almost laughed when the captain of the Maiden Anne actually stuck his head around the door to see if it was safe to come in this time. “Well, are you ready to cut my throat with my own razors, youngun?”
“I hope I’m not that unskilled.”
“I sincerely share that hope.”
He shed his uncertainty, which had been comical, it was so unsuited to the man, and sauntered toward the table where she had set the basin of water. His razors were spread out on a towel, next to which more towels were stacked, and she had already whipped up a lather in the cup she found for that use. He had been gone much longer than ten minutes, so she had also set the room to rights, making his bed, stowing her own, picking up his discarded clothes to wash later. The only thing she hadn’t done was fetch his breakfast, but Shawn O’Shawn was cooking that now.
Looking over the setup, he remarked, “So you have done this before?”
“No, I’ve watched my brothers do it.”
“Better than total ignorance, I suppose. Well, have at it then.”
He peeled his shirt off and tossed it farther down the table, then turned his chair sideways and sat down facing her. Georgina just stared. She hadn’t expected to work on him while he was half dressed. It wasn’t necessary. She had extra towels, big ones, to wrap around his shoulders to protect his shirt. Devil take him, she’d use them anyway.
But when she tried to, he pushed them away. “If I want you to smother me, George, I’ll let you know.”
The idea of cutting his throat appealed to her more and more. If it wouldn’t be so messy, and if she wouldn’t have to clean up the blood, she’d give in to the impulse. With all that skin to distract her, it just might happen anyway—accidentally, of course.
She could shave him. She had to do it. And best do it quickly, before that wretched nausea flared up to make it an even more difficult task. Just don’t look down, Georgie, or up, or anywhere but at his very ordinary whiskers. How disturbing can whiskers be?
At arm’s length, she spread the lather on thickly, but she had to get closer to do the actual scraping. She was looking at his cheeks, concentrating on her task, or trying to. He was staring up at her eyes. When her gaze happened to collide with his, her pulse picked up its beat. And he didn’t look away. She did, but she could still feel his eyes on her, and the sudden heat they were causing.
“Stop those blushes, now,” he chided. “What’s a little bare arse between men?”
She hadn’t even been thinking of that, curse and rot him. But now her face was twice as hot, and got hotter, for he wasn’t going to let the subject pass.
“I don’t know why I should, since it’s my cabin,” he said testily, “but I’m going to apologize, George, for what happened earlier. You’d think I walked in on a bloody girl, the way you carried on.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Never mind that. Just put a damned sign on the door next time if your privacy means so much to you. I’ll honor the bloody thing, and no one else comes in here without permission.”
A lock on the door would be even better, but she didn’t suggest it. She hadn’t expected this much, was amazed that the man could be so considerate, generous even, when he didn’t have to be. She might even be able to take a real bath now, instead of a quick sponge-off down in the hold.
“Blister it, George, I’m rather fond of this face. Leave me some skin on it, will you?”
He startled her so, she thoughtlessly snapped, “Then do it yourself!” and threw the razor down on the table.
She was stalking away from him when his dry tone hit her in the back. “Oh, my. The brat has a temper, does he?”
She stopped, her eyes widening with the realization of what she’d just done. Her groan was quite loud, and when she turned about, she looked as apprehensive as she felt.
“I’m sorry, Captain. I don’t know what came over me. A bit of everything, maybe, but honestly, I don’t have a temper. You can ask Mac.”
“But I asked you. Now, you aren’t afraid to be truthful with me, are you, George?”
That was worth another groan, though she kept this one to herself. “Not at all. Should I be?”
“I don’t see why. Your size gives you an advantage, you know. You’re too small to cuff or flog, and I wouldn’t inconvenience myself by assigning you extra duty as punishment, now would I? So you can feel free to speak your mind to me, George. Ours is a close relationship, after all.”
“And if I should cross the line into being disrespectful?” she couldn’t resist asking.
“Why, I’d blister your backside, of course. That is about the only recourse I have for a lad your age. But that isn’t going to be necessary, is it, George?”
“No, sir, it most certainly isn’t,” she gritted out, horrified and enraged at once.
“Then come along and finish my shave. And do try and be a little more careful this time.”
“If you would…not talk, I might be able to concentrate better.” She couched it as a suggestion. Her tone was utterly respectful. But his despised brow still shot upward. “Well, you said I could speak my mind,” she mumbled angrily as she stepped forward and picked up the razor again. “And as long as I’m at it, I hate it when you do that.”
The other brow rose to join the first, but now in surprise. “Do what?”
She waved the hand that held the razor toward his face. “That supercilious lifting of the eyebrows.”
“Good God, brat, you bowl me over with your diction, indeed you do.”
“So now you think it’s funny?”
“What I think, dear boy, is that you took me much too literally. When I said you could speak your mind, it was not with the thought that you would be foolish enough to criticize your captain. In that you cross the line, as I believe you well know.”
She did know it, and had only been combing the waters, so to speak, to see just how far she would sink before drowning. Not far at all, obviously.
“I’m sorry, Captain.”
“I thought we agreed yesterday that you’d look me in the eye if you were going to apologize. That’s better. So you hate it, d’you?”
Devil take it, now he was amused. And she hated that even more than his brow raising, especially since he never bothered to share the joke with her.
“I feel it’s in my best interests not to answer that, Captain.”
He burst into laughter at that. “Well said, George! You’re learning, indeed you are.”
His pleasure with her included a clap on the shoulder. Unfortunately, this sent her careening into his open thigh, which precipitated his having to grab her to keep her from tumbling over his leg. She’d grabbed him, too, to stop the fall herself. When they both realized they were holding on to each other, the ship could have sunk and they wouldn’t have noticed. But the electrifying moment was come and gone in a matter of seconds, for he released her as fast as she did him.
As if fire hadn’t leaped between them in that brief span of time, the captain said, albeit unsteadily, “My whiskers have likely grown an inch since you got started, George. I do hope you’ll get the hang of this before we reach Jamaica.”
Georgina was too flustered to answer, so she just brought the razor up to his face and began working on the side she’d yet to scrape. Her heart was fluttering wildly, but why shouldn’t it? She’d thought she was going over his leg headfirst. It had nothing to do with touching him.
But when she turned his face to finish up the other side, she saw the dots of blood where she’d nicked him. Without thinking about it, her fingers gently wiped the spots.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
If her voice had been soft in saying it, his was much, much softer in his reply. “I know.”
Oh, God, here comes the nausea, she thought.