Page 20 of Go, Rogue

Chapter

8

McGann feels himself look down at her bare feet. He tries not to. Bare feet should mean nothing to him. But they do. Bare feet and trousers and—hell. He drags his gaze back up to her face, too late; she’s caught him looking.

“See what I’ve done?” Catherine points to her new attire and gives him a little twirl. “I couldn’t fix my slippers.” She wiggles her toes at him. “But I think the rest came out rather well.”

Aye. That it did. Too well. Don’t look.

McGann grunts some non-answer and averts his eyes from her. He sets down the wine and glasses and helps the cabin boy arrange their plates before walking the lad back to the door. He does everything he can not to look at the lass wearing his clothes.

The sight of her in them does something to his mind he doesn’t care for. He feels like a damned barbarian, ready to scent her or mark her—haul her off to some secret place and claim her as his own territory. The urge is as primal as it is obscene, and it will do nothing to make the next ten days any easier.

“Don’t you like it?” she asks, turning her legs this way and that and peering at them. “I’ll be able to move better,” she says. “Like you taught me.”

He pulls his eyes back to her face by sheer strength of will alone, only to see that she looks hurt because he hasn’t answered her yet.

Bloody hell.

“Sit,” he says, and it comes out gruffer than he intends.

He doesn’t want to think about how he taught her to fight during those two nights they’d spent in each other’s company six months ago. Or how it felt to be so near to her, to be allowed to touch her as he showed her how to punch and kick. Or how he’s been half-hard for her ever since.

For six goddamned months.

He should never have agreed to teach her. Nor to have her on The Elphame—though this time, he hadn’t had a choice. He makes a mental note to keep himself as far away from any hare-brained idea that springs from the mind of Lady Catherine West as possible. She’s—well, she’s a menace. But he’s known that since the moment he met her.

“You’ve never seen a lady in trousers?” she presses. “You left them for me, so I would have thought—”

“Aye. Eat.”

He’s seen a lot of women in trousers during his travels. And he’s bedded every single one he could manage. Another thing he isn’t about to discuss with her.

“As you wish,” she says and shrugs. “Why are you angry?”

“I’m not.” He sips his wine.

“You’re sucking your teeth, so…”

McGann growls at her. There’s no way he wants her to finish that sentence. Her ability to see him has always unnerved him. Others only ever see a dark-skinned, giant man and draw whatever ominous conclusions they want to from those physical features.

But Catherine has never done that. Or, he corrects himself, he thought she hadn’t when she’d asked him to teach her how to fight. He’d thought she saw something more in him. That she trusted him and wanted to learn from him. And he’d thought—for a single 48-hour span of time—that she had known him.

Which meant something to him, because there are precious few who know Andrew McGann. But he’d been wrong. She hadn’t known or seen him at all. And the error hurt more than he cared to admit.

It still hurts more than he cares to admit.

He isn’t going to be wrong again. And if that kind of necessary self-preservation comes across as anger, so be it. He doesn’t care.

He doesn’t.

He straightens his spine and begins to eat.

She sits at the table too and picks up her fork. “How’s the weather?” she asks, and he all but rolls his eyes at her.

“Menace,” he says. “There is only one topic of conversation we’re going to have, and that is how I found you on my ship.”

“Oh!” She sounds genuinely delighted, which confuses him. “I’ve figured that out,” she says. “It was the glitter, wasn’t it? It gets everywhere.” She wrinkles her nose and glances sideways at the bed linens, which he notices are covered in the stuff.