Page 23 of Go, Rogue

“Who?”

“Sedgewick. Chester. My cousin.”

“You call your cousin the Local Adonis?”

“Everyone does. Not to his face, of course. Can you imagine calling an earl the Local Adonis to his face?” She laughs, delighted at the thought, before sobering again. “But it is his defining characteristic, how handsome he is. Even the solicitor remarked on it. It’s really quite irritating to be his relation. He shouldn’t get everything and the looks on top of it. It isn’t fair to the rest of us.”

“Menace,” McGann says quietly, “you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

She blinks. “What?”

“Nothing,” he replies quickly, but she can see the tinge of embarrassment coloring his cheekbones. She loves that tinge.

“Go on with your story,” he says, and she knows he won’t repeat what he said. But she doesn’t need him to. She’d heard it the first time, and that’s enough to send a flare of warmth through her.

“Well,” she says. “Chester left before either he or Mr. Wilson knew I was there. Slipped right out the side door. I wonder what might have happened if I’d spoken to him then instead of at the wedding?” She sips her wine and shrugs. “Not that it matters now. He’d gone before I could speak with him. But the solicitor hadn’t, and I was not leaving his office until he gave me my answers.”

“You mean you held the solicitor captive in his own office?”

“Not per se, no. But I did sit in his office chair behind his desk until he provided me with the information I needed. He’d only himself to blame. He could have answered mother’s letters at any time but chose not to.”

“A siege, then.” McGann smirks. “And what did you learn during your siege?”

“That is the strangest part of this story. As I said, my father really had left us with nothing. Mother kept the small portion that she’d been entitled to from her own marriage contracts, and everything else went to Sedgwick.”

“The Local Adonis?”

“Yes, Chester. And he… he’d treated us well. A handsome sum for mother. Enough for her to live on without worry. A weekly allowance for me that started that very day, the day the contracts were signed. And a generous dowry. I knew he’d had to have given me something because Pembrooke’s father wouldn’t have agreed to the marriage otherwise, but I didn’t realize it would be quite so much. It was all very unexpected.”

“Who is Pembrooke?”

“The Honorable Henry Pembrooke, heir to the Waverly Viscountcy.” She looks at him expectantly but he only shrugs. “My fiancé,” she says, but then pauses. “Former fiancé. The point is Sedgewick, Chester, whatever you want to call him, he saved us.”

“That was good of him.”

“It was, but as I left, I couldn’t help but think, What if he hadn’t? It was by the grace of God and my cousin whom I barely knew that Mother and I weren’t turned out on the streets. Paupers or worse. And we’d have had no recourse at all. There would have been nothing to stop us from becoming beggars.

“Father had stipulated that I be married as soon as possible, with a suggestion of only the smallest of dowries to make that happen. Sedgwick didn’t have to increase it. He could have pushed me off on anyone. He didn’t, but he could have.” She shudders. “So, now you understand, of course.”

“I understand your father was a cur and a fool to boot,” McGann says, “and not a damned other thing about that story.” He looks at his watch. “But you can explain it to me tomorrow. It’s time for sleep now.”

“That’s the story, Captain, of how I came to meet you. That very same day, in fact, in Covent Garden. I was on my way home when the storm frightened the horses and the carriage crashed and you came to my rescue.”

“Ah.”

“And the weekly allowance the solicitor gave me provided the sums of money that I used to invest in your company.”

“Ah,” McGann says again, but this time with a raised eyebrow and a decidedly cooler tone in his voice.

“That I eventually invested in your company,” she amends, watching his face, knowing they’re edging into difficult territory. “After all the rest of it.”

She waves her hand in the air, as if the incidents that came after that fateful carriage crash: attempted robbery, fighting lessons, the time she’d all but thrown herself at McGann and he’d refused her, could be wiped away by the flutter of her fingers.

“Time for bed, Menace. Dawn comes early on the water.”

“Not so fast, Captain,” she says, squelching a yawn. “A story for a story was our deal. You promised.”

“Tomorrow, lass.”

He stands and stretches, and she knows she should avert her eyes from his long, muscular body, but she doesn’t. “I’ve to find someplace to hang my hammock.”

Another wave of guilt washes over her as she watches him exit the room that should have been his. “Goodnight, Captain McGann,” she says quietly. “Thank you for the use of your cabin.”

He turns to give her a short, elegant bow. “My pleasure. Sleep well.” And then he pauses. “Be careful tomorrow, Menace. This is a new crew. I won’t have you wandering about unattended with a lot of unknown men.”

She might have argued if she were less tired; the crew had been perfectly lovely when she’d finally made her way out of the hatch earlier that morning. But more than that, she feels like she and McGann have arrived at some new place tonight at dinner. That some thread of understanding now connects them. One she doesn’t want to risk by arguing, so she only nods while he closes the door behind him.