Page 12 of Go, Rogue

Chapter

5

McGann storms his way below deck via the ladder made for that very purpose, not the cabin boy’s hatch, for fuck’s sake. He knows what happens next; that he’s going to have to lay his hands on her to get her out of the ridiculous predicament she’s gotten herself into.

He doesn’t want to. He’s already survived the temptation of her once, barely, and it’s not clear to him he’ll be able to do it again.

What in hell is she thinking?

She’d been at the bloody church! Ready to be married.

I saw her there with my own eyes!

And instead, she’s somehow here, stuck in a hatch with her nose freezing above deck and her arse in the air below it. The whole thing is absurd. And absurdity has absolutely no place in his life or on his ship. Not that there seems to be anything he can do about it, not when Lady Catherine West is present, anyhow. She brings the absurdity along with her, like a bee brings its pollen or a tide its waves.

“Can you hear me, lass?” he calls up to her after he’s located said arse below deck.

“Yes.”

“Good. Now hold still. I’m going to disentangle you. You’ve got yourself both wedged in and somehow—” his hands reach under his peacoat and fuss with the outer layers of her dress, “snagged. It doesn’t even seem possible to have done this. You could not do it again, I wager, if you tried.”

“McGann,” she says, her voice muffled from above, “it would be ideal if you could release me with as little commentary as possible.”

“Aye.”

It’ll definitely be best to get this over with as soon as he can. While touching her body as little as he can manage. Surely he can handle that. He’s a man who has gone head to head with the East India Company and come out the victor. A snagged wedding dress cannot be his undoing.

Still, he feels his heart beat against the wall of his chest as he climbs the ladder rung below her. He ignores it. All he has to do is find where her gown has caught the edge of the hatch door and release her.

There’s no reason for any kind of heartbeat foolishness. None.

He reaches for her waist and feels her shiver beneath his touch. From the cold, certainly. Although his imagination helpfully provides other reasons she might shiver.

Stop it, eejit, he commands himself.

And then to her, “Are you cold, lass? I’ll hurry.”

“No,” she says. And then, more quickly, “Yes. Yes, please hurry.”

He draws in his breath, demanding his heartbeat behave itself, and reaches again for the hem of his coat. It’s caught half in the hatch and half out, as she is, and he thinks the snag is somewhere underneath it.

“See if you can pull the coat up at least. Then I can see where the issue is.”

She does, and he closes his ears against the sound of wool ripping as she drags his peacoat up and out of the hatch, rending a giant hole in the side of it in the process.

“Is that better?” she calls down to him, and he glowers at her, not that any part of her can see it but her derriere.

He puts his hands on that same derriere and swivels her a bit, looking for the cause of her current predicament. Without the peacoat in the way, she has a little bit more room, but she still seems to be stuck. He swivels her hips again, grateful for the extra-wide crinoline that acts as a barrier between his hands and her skin. He needs every barrier, buffer, and obstacle between them he can get.

He steps away and stares at her, frowning again.

The bloody crinoline’s the issue.

He’s nearly certain of it.

He puts his hands back on her to test this theory, but she keeps shifting beneath his fingertips. Wiggling.

Damn it.