Page 10 of Go, Rogue

Chapter

4

McGann takes in a deep breath that does not do a goddamned thing to calm him. Rogers, his first mate, stands beside him, staring wide-eyed at the sight of the woman stuck between the upper and lower decks of The Elphame.

The rest of the crew will notice soon enough, and then, he knows from experience, all hell will break loose. Sailors do not take well to stray ladies in their midst. Even land-lubbers know women aboard a ship are bad luck.

And she, in particular, is bad luck for him.

She’s been a menace to his well-being ever since the moment he’d laid eyes on her six months ago in the dark alleyway outside Nowhere, the London tavern run by his sister.

He flicks his gaze backward to the coastline that has now fully receded from view. They’ve come too far to turn back now. Especially after they lost yesterday to the storm that blew in overnight. And his own ridiculous behavior, not that he’s going to think about that now.

He’s going to… glower.

And then he’s going to figure out how to remove Catherine West from his ship. Somehow, someway, she is not staying on board.

“You cannot be here, lass,” he says.

“But I am here. And,” she shimmies again, trying to free herself. A sight which, Elphame help him, he should avert his eyes from.

But devil be damned if he’s going to. He enjoys the way her body moves far too much to look away. There is also a small part of him, not the noble part, that enjoys watching her stuck in the decking of his ship.

The Dutch have a word for that specific kind of unkindness, he’d heard it once from an old crewmate: leedvermaak. He’s always remembered it because neither Gaelic nor English has an equivalent, but they should. Pleasure derived from another’s misfortune; it’s practically the English national pastime.

Serves the lass right to be stuck.

“If you could just lend a hand, please?” Catherine says. “I really do seem to be wedged in here.”

Rogers steps forward to offer his assistance, but a single glare from McGann freezes the man mid-step. He settles quickly back by McGann’s side.

“Why,” McGann tries again, sucking air in through his teeth in an effort to calm himself, “are you not on your honeymoon, Menace? You did marry, did you not?”

She opens her mouth to speak, and he finds himself staring at it. He’s… goddamnit… he’s holding his breath, waiting on her answer.

“I did not,” she says, and he absolutely ignores the swell of relief that washes over him. “Not that it’s any business of yours, to be sure. But I had a change of heart. Or mind, rather. I suppose heart didn’t play into it much.”

Her eyebrows furrow then, and the light in her bright blue eyes dims.

“Did he hurt you?” he grinds out before he can stop himself.

“No.” She pauses. “It isn’t important.” And then she squares her shoulders as well as she can, being stuck in a hatch, and visibly squelches whatever emotion he’s just seen on her face.

She pastes on that bright smile instead. He hates that smile. He’s seen the real one before, and he knows what it looks like. It’s not whatever she’s doing with her lips now. Whatever the hell she’s doing now makes him angry. Like everything about her makes him angry.

Especially the fact that she’s on his ship! When she should have been doing them both a favor by getting married.

“How,” he asks, trying and failing to rein himself in, “is it not important that you failed to marry? Ye were at the church. All done up in yer wedding dress and yer frippery and yer gold hair glitter. I saw ye there meself. Ye canno’ just change yer mind after all that!”

He stops, realizing just how much he’s let his control slip. He glances over at Rogers, who raises his eyebrows in a question. Which he ignores. He shouldn’t have said anything about his foray to the church yesterday. No one needed to know.

Breathe, eejit, he commands himself.

“And what do you mean,” he turns his attention back to Catherine, “that you’re my investor?”

“One thing at a time,” she says, and he knows she isn’t going to let it go. That yesterday morning he’d been at the church where he shouldn’t be, watching a lady he shouldn’t have been watching, with his heart burrowing deep down into his guts where it shouldn’t be located.

“First of all,” she continues, “that was you at the church. I thought it was. What were you doing there?”