How to Be a Proper Lady

deck below.

“Call me a coward again, Miss Carlyle, and I will shoot you myself and endure the earl’s chastisements.”

She laughed, a full-throated, musical chortle. She was brazen, he must give her that. And entirely unafraid.

Ducking their heads, they came onto the gun deck. The air in the narrow space was oppressively close, the gunwales shut tight, and no sign of the cannons having been fired. No bodies were anywhere in sight here, but a stack of empty cages gaped open at the base of the bowsprit.

“They took the live animals but not all the cargo, and none of the rigging or canvas. Not even the water.”

He nodded. “In a hurry. Moving on to another goal, perhaps.”

“Then you don’t believe any longer that they’re waiting to jump out at us like ghouls? I am so sorry for your disappointment.”

A grin tugged at his lips. “Perhaps I will have to kill you myself after all.”

“You try it.” She swung around the rail and continued down into the hold. Jin found himself following again.

“Not interested in checking the master’s cabin?”

“Don’t need to. He was on deck.”

“How do you know that?”

“I knew him.”

Forcing his gaze away from the fall of satin hair down her back, he scanned the broad space only half-filled with barrels and canvas sacks, some broken open and their contents scattered. No humans here, either. “Who was he?”

“Jason Pettigrew. A friend of my father.” She set her fists on her hips. “Fionn captained a brig for him-not this one-right before the war. Jason always said-” She broke off and lines appeared between her eyes.

“Were you aboard that ship?” he said to encourage her to continue.

“Fionn nearly always took me along.”

“From the beginning?”

“Yes. Is this an interview, Seton? Should I sit and narrate my life for you here? Or perhaps you could simply read my diaries, although you would no doubt find them too tame for your tastes.”

“I suspect they would be as fascinating as their author.”

Her gaze snapped to him. But there was no scowl on her face, only a bright-eyed wariness. She pivoted and sprang up the steps.

He climbed up behind her, tracing the curve of her hips with his gaze. “Shall I have the men transfer the cargo?”

“Only the fresh water. We’ve sufficient supplies.”

“And the bodies?”

She cast him a quick glance, surprise in the violet. He held her gaze evenly. If she wished to believe him inhumane, at one time she would not have been far off the mark.

“Tell the boys to cut the canvas and line from this ship to wrap them. We’ll bury them at dusk.”

“Aye aye.”

She unstrapped her pistol and cutlass and handed them to Sam. Then she unbuttoned her waistcoat and kicked off her shoes. She went to the rail, testing the draw of the dagger in her sash.

Jin frowned. “What are you doing?”

With a half grin that sent heat straight to his groin, she dove into the sea below.

Chapter 9

Jin lunged forward to grab her, but too late, clutching the rail as she disappeared beneath the gray water.

“What in the blazes-”

“Cap’n’s got a bee in her bonnet, sir, no doubt ’bout that,” Sam said.

“A bee?” His head spun, heart racing. Panic sluiced over him like the waves that had swallowed Viola Carlyle. His gaze pinned the ocean. “What is she doing?”

“Dunno, sir. Must be somethin’ she’s lookin’ for. But she’s got powerful big lungs.”

“To the boat.” He grabbed the ladder.

They were the longest moments he ever lived, including those he had spent bound in iron manacles to the floor of a slaving ship as it crossed the deep Atlantic twenty-two years ago. Two minutes passed. More. He dragged off his coat, readying to dive. Viola’s head bobbed above the sea’s frothy surface, and he pulled in hard breaths.

She swam to the boat, arms cutting above the shifting foam, hair plastered about her head. Not only hair-a rope, caked with blackish sea vegetation that clung to her cheeks, held between her teeth like a bit.

He leaned over the side of the boat and grabbed her, Mr. French on the other side, and in a splashing rush they hauled her aboard. She shed water, gaining her bearings, but Jin did not release his grasp. Pulling the rope from her mouth she swung the object tied to its end around from her back, leaving trails of green slime across her face, neck and the white shirt plastered to her body. Her visibly cold body.

He wrapped her in his coat.

“What ya got thar, Cap’n?”

“A treasure, of course, Ayo.”

Viola grinned at the sailor, waiting for the storm to break at her side. Seton’s hand gripped her arm like a vise. He dragged her to a bench, released her, and her sailors set oars to water. She was glad for their haste, and for his coat. The sea was unforgiving today. She was accustomed to lengthy dives, but she’d been under this time longer than she should. Her teeth made little clicking sounds in her muzzled head.

He didn’t speak or look at her. Settling the small box she’d retrieved from the bottom of the merchant ship on her lap, she flickered a glance at him. A muscle worked in his jaw. She closed her eyes.

In a moment, it seemed, they were at her ship and she was climbing, sodden and cold, to the deck. Behind her Seton gave orders for the men to transfer the merchantman’s stores of water to the April Storm. She moved toward the stairway. He followed but said nothing until they’d moved beyond the sailors clustered about the main deck. She put her foot on the first step and finally he spoke, but in an even, steady voice.

“Pettigrew once told you of that box, I presume.”

She swung down the steps, clutching her hard-won prize tighter. She’d lost her dagger when the final nail binding the box to the hull popped abruptly and the hilt slipped out of her numb hand.

“Obviously.”

“Its contents must be very valuable.” He followed her aft toward her cabin, but his calm tone did not deceive her. “I know something of such prizes. Innocuous containers with valuable contents. I know how one might take foolish chances in order to retrieve such an object.” An edge cut his voice now.

“It was not so foolish. I have stayed below for longer.”

“Sam mentioned that.” He was right behind her. He reached forward and pushed the door of her cabin open, surrounding her for an instant. She ducked out from beneath his arm and moved to the washstand. He entered behind her. “Nevertheless, it was unwise, taking that chance.”

“Not much of a chance.” She swiped a cloth across her cheeks and brow, smelling the thick brine of the sea. “I knew what I was looking for and retrieved it quickly. My men know-”

He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.

“I am not one of your men and I did not know that you are likely to hurl yourself into a rough sea.” His crystal eyes glittered in the pale light, fingertips digging into her flesh.

She shrugged out of his hold, her skin hot where he’d touched her.

“You sound like a hen-wife, Seton. Go nag someone else.”

His gaze, intense and hard, scanned her face. But there was something else in the blue, something seeking. Quite abruptly her knees weakened.